Donatella Versace is determined to save her company, which has been in the news lately for layoffs and financial problems. Donatella told the media "I AM a survivor." Thrust into the spotlight when her brother was murdered, Donatella discussed with The New York Times the years of drug use, the rehab and how she had to be strong for the company and for her family.
Seated on a sofa in her suite at the Waldorf Towers, where she was registered for privacy's sake as "Mrs. Montez," Ms. Versace was dressed in form-hugging black trousers and the stilettos she removes only at the gym. With her hair bleached to a color one associates with mythological nymphets, and with her heavily accented English, she seemed every bit the exotic satirized by Maya Rudolph on Saturday Night Live -- a characterization that, Ms. Versace said, "I laughed about -- once."
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"In my life I had no other choice than to become a strong person," Ms. Versace said. "I had to do it, at first for Gianni, and also for my children," she said, referring to her daughter, Allegra, who inherited 50 percent of the company in 2004 when she turned 18.
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She points out that, even in the days when she was such a compulsive cocaine consumer that fashion insiders alert to this open secret speculated on whether she would ever leave the bathroom to make an appearance at one of her own dinner parties, she still produced eight collections a year.
"If my problem was as big as everyone says, how did I run this company and create all these collections?" said Ms. Versace, whose 2004 stint at a rehabilitation center in Arizona came about only after a group of friends, Elton John among them, staged an intervention during one of these parties at her palazzo on via Gesu in Milan.
"I was dressed up, very glamorous, and I went to the bathroom to do a line," Ms. Versace said. "I didn't think anything was strange at the time, but then when I came out, all my friends were sitting in a circle on chairs and they said: 'You have a problem. We love you. You have to get help.'"
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"But you have to face the truth," Ms. Versace said, whether seeking sobriety or reinvention in the global marketplace. "For me, life is about chapters," she said, drawing one of the Marlboro Reds she chain-smokes from a packet customized with her DV monogram.
"Die and born again, die and born again," she said, striking a match. "It's the story of my life."
Analysts say companies like Versace will have to change in order to survive in the new post-recession world. Luxury sales will eventually increase, but spending is not expected to be as profligate as it once was. Donatella has hired a new CEO who is trimming costs and making changes in the company to comport with the new realities in the marketplace.
