In the mid-1970s, Donatella Versace studied literature and languages in Florence, commuting on weekends to Milan to work with her brother Gianni Versace, then designing at the Callaghan label. By 1976 she had joined him in Milan full time, and at the official founding of Versace in 1978 she was named vice president, overseeing accessories and helping define the brand’s stylistic language.

In 1989, Gianni dedicated the Blonde perfume to her and entrusted the Versus diffusion line to her direction, the laboratory in which her hand sharpened around studded leather, the printed silk shirt, the lamé sheath, and the chainmail Oroton developed at the house in 1982.

Following Gianni’s murder in July 1997, the estate announced that Santo would serve as CEO of Gianni Versace SpA while Donatella took over as head of design, becoming creative director of the house that autumn. On July 18, 1998, one year and three days after his death, she mounted her first haute couture show for the Versace Atelier at the Hôtel Ritz Paris, building the runway over the hotel swimming pool in sheer glass.

Her Versace ran on a frankness about the body that set the house against the minimalism of Jil Sander and Helmut Lang in the same window, reaching its widest cultural footprint with the plunging green jungle-print dress worn by Jennifer Lopez at the Grammy Awards in 2000, a piece reportedly credited with prompting the creation of Google Images.

She brought Christopher Kane in to revive Versus in 2009 and later handed capsules to Jonathan Anderson in 2012 and Anthony Vaccarello, who became Versus creative director before departing in 2016.

In 2018, Capri Holdings acquired the business for some $2 billion, and in March 2025 she stepped down as creative director to assume the honorary role of chief brand ambassador. Versace’s 28-year tenure closes as the longer argument of her career, the conversion of a family atelier into a global house held together through the Lopez green dress, the Atelier couture, and the supermodel runway, while she continues as the public face of the label under new design leadership.