Today, wearing a tight, dark purple, polo-neck sweater, matching satin trousers and spike-heel boots, a diamond-studded Cartier watch dangling loosely from her wrist - "it belonged to Gianni" - she looks sleek and healthy. She's tanned, of course, but not the deep mahogany of days gone by, and her only vice is a penchant for Marlboro reds. She's abandoned weight training and now does five 45-minute sessions of aerobics, along with Power Plate, a vibrating platform that's the latest thing among New York gym bunnies Her friend Madonna recommended it to her "They sell it at Harrods," she advises, helpfully. Three days ago she got back from New York, where she had held a star-studded party to celebrate the makeover of the Fifth Avenue shop, and, on arriving in Milan, she immediately set to work on the final fittings for her autumn/winter 2006 womenswear show.
Oh, and in any spare time she has, she's reading "political biographies".But these days, work comes first. An unlikely cheerleader for feminism - nothing stands for sexpot chic quite like Versace - Donatella believes her designs empower women. "Women should be sure of themselves because women have a lot of capacities We can achieve so many different things that men cannot I think women are stronger. Our strength is not really well seen by everybody." But she does not, she says, (omega) create clothes first and foremost for herself: "No I don't like myself so much I design what women want to wear. Women are all the same, we want to be smaller in the waist, longer legs, slimmer. I design for women and their defects, to make them better."Versace was born in 1955 in Reggio di Calabria, southern Italy; her mother, Franca, was a dressmaker with her own atelier of 45 seamstresses. But it was her brother, 10 years her senior, who drew her into fashion.
She studied literature at university, "but Gianni wouldn't leave me alone for one second" and as soon as she turned 18 she began to work with him "I never thought about doing something else. He was working for other companies when I was at university, so I was going there, working with him, Friday to Monday morning." As Gianni's career took off - he founded his own label in 1978 - his younger sister became his trusted muse. "If my sister wants to do something, OK," he once told Vanity Fair. "If she doesn't like a sketch, I will cancel it.""We had a strong relationship, me and Gianni," she says quietly.Surrounded as she is by the trappings of wealth - the ring with a diamond the size of a gobstopper that she's wearing says it all, as does the art collection at the Milan HQ that includes Matisse, Hockney and Braque - the past nine years have been a trial. It must be a monumental responsibility to inherit a million-dollar fashion company. "Oh!" she exclaims, "You can tell me!" Did she ever want to refuse to take on that burden? "I didn't think about not accepting it The more scary part was the beginning The few years after Gianni died. No, I did accept responsibility, but it was very hard - and it is."The company won't talk about what role majority shareholder Allegra might have in the future - for now, she is said to be pursuing an acting career in New York.
Her mother seems determined to preserve the company's family-owned status, although she's cautious about peering too far ahead "I'm more scared now. Because after this turnaround and things went very well," she pauses, before letting out a big laugh, "I feel like I'm starting all over again It's the pressure to keep the momentum going. I have to keep it going, I have no choice, so I'm attentive about everything."With the main ready-to-wear collection now garnering positive reviews and the company's balance sheet finally inching into the black - Di Risio estimates that Versace will break even in 2007 - Donatella is retrieving some of the pizzazz of old. For her spring/ summer 2005 advertising campaign, she enlisted Madonna, followed by Demi Moore last autumn and Halle Berry in the current season "Halle has achieved so much in life She's a little bit older She represents something. I love younger actresses, but I chose Halle because she achieved something in life which is more interesting and more inspirational to women." (Versace is particularly pleased Berry has started dating one of the male models who appeared in the campaign alongside her: "I created that couple," she beams.)It was Gianni Versace who fuelled the supermodel phenomenon in the 1990s - once booking Linda Evangelista, Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell and Christy Turlington to walk his runway while lip-synching to George Michael's "Freedom".