Versace

History

From Reggio Calabria to Milan, 1946–1977

Gianni Versace was born in Reggio Calabria, in the far south of Italy, on 2 December 1946.^[11] His mother was a dressmaker, and he grew up in her workshop watching her at work; Sabina Albano, who organised a 2017 exhibition of his designs in Naples, told WWD that the family home faced an archaeological site, and Versace himself traced his feeling for antiquity to Calabria's past as part of Magna Graecia.^[30][31]

He had no formal training in fashion: according to AnOther, he studied architectural drawing at a technical college, bought stock for his mother's business and then designed for her store.^[31] UPI's 1997 profile records that in 1971 Ezio Nicosia, owner of the Florentine Flowers clothing company in Lucca, asked him to design quick additions to a collection that was not selling, and that Versace moved to Milan the following year.^[11]

In Milan he worked for several years as a freelance designer for Callaghan, Genny and Complice.^[31] The Victoria and Albert Museum holds a cream cotton blouson he designed for Complice around 1972, its front zip carried on around the standing collar.^[32]

The house of Gianni Versace, 1978–1989

Versace showed his first women's collection under his own name at the Palazzo della Permanente in Milan on 28 March 1978 and opened his first store the same year; UPI dates his first men's collection to the year after.^[10][31][11] It was a family business: his brother Santo ran the commercial side as president, and his sister Donatella worked with him as vice president.^[31][33]

Metal mesh became one of his materials early. The Met owns a mesh evening dress of 1982 and notes that the material falls in liquid folds suited to classical drapery but is hard to join, since it cannot be sewn, which may be why Versace kept to simple, straight-edged pattern pieces.^[3] The V&A's evening dresses of 1983–84, in the aluminium mesh known as Oroton, are the originals of dresses worn by Princess Caroline of Monaco, the actor Candice Bergen and the Italian singer Ornella Vanoni; Versace gave them to the museum in 1985, when it devoted a study day to his work.^[34]

His interests ran beyond clothes: The Met's catalogue of his work gives chapters to his costumes for opera and dance and to his links with artists such as Alexander Calder, Robert and Sonia Delaunay and, above all, Andy Warhol.^[35] In 1989 he added haute couture, launching a line called Versace Atelier, the date given by the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, which owns a densely beaded silk mini dress from that first year.^[36] Versus, a younger diffusion line, followed the same year: FashionNetwork credits Donatella with launching it,^[37] WWD says she became its head designer in 1994,^[38] and she still led it in the mid-1990s; the house has since closed it.^[39]

Supermodels, couture and pop, 1990–1997

For spring-summer 1991 Versace printed evening dresses with Andy Warhol's 1960s portraits of Marilyn Monroe and James Dean; The Met, which owns one, links the series to his association of Warhol with media, art and the scene he found on his first trips to New York.^[40]

The autumn-winter 1991 show, in the Fiera Milano exhibition hall, put the models of his advertising campaigns on his runway, an idea AnOther credits to Liz Tilberis, then editor of British Vogue.^[31] It closed with Linda Evangelista, Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell and Christy Turlington lip-synching to George Michael's Freedom! '90, the song whose video they had appeared in.^[31]

For autumn-winter 1992 he showed Miss S&M, since known as his bondage collection: black leather with straps and metal details, which L'Officiel says split critics between those who saw women reduced to objects and those who found it empowering.^[41][33] The V&A holds a quilted black leather jacket with diamanté studs from that season.^[42] By 1994 he was also showing couture in Paris, and the V&A's white silk mini dress from the spring-summer 1994 haute couture collection, with a lace yoke and smocked midriff, shows his habit of turning lingerie into outerwear.^[43]

In May 1994 Elizabeth Hurley wore a black Versace dress, split at the sides and held together with large safety pins, to the London premiere of Four Weddings and a Funeral; ABC News credits the dress with launching her to fame.^[17][41] For spring-summer 1995 Versace put a small Medusa between Greek-style metal clasps on the shoulder straps of evening dresses, the detail the house revived in 2024 as Medusa '95.^[19] His last collection drew in part on The Met's 1997 exhibition The Glory of Byzantium, according to the museum.^[35]

Gianni Versace was killed in Miami Beach on 15 July 1997, aged 50; Donatella Versace became head of design, and with Santo Versace and her daughter Allegra she took charge of the company.^[11][6][44]

Donatella Versace's house, 1997–2018

On 11 December 1997 The Met opened Gianni Versace, a retrospective organised by Richard Martin, curator in charge of its Costume Institute, which ran until 22 March 1998.^[45][35]

In 2000 Jennifer Lopez wore a plunging green Versace dress with a leafy jungle print to the 42nd Grammy Awards.^[46][41] CNN reported that searches for the dress inspired Google to create its image search, the house has told the same story, and Eric Schmidt, Google's former chief executive and chairman, wrote in 2015 that it was the most popular search query Google had seen at the time and that Google Image Search was born of the demand.^[46][47][48]

In 2014 the company sold a 20 percent stake to the Blackstone Group, which paid €210 million, money Versace used to expand its own stores.^[49] At the time GiVi, the family holding company, was owned 50 percent by Allegra Versace Beck, 30 percent by Santo Versace and 20 percent by Donatella Versace.^[50] In 2016 Jonathan Akeroyd succeeded Gian Giacomo Ferraris as chief executive.^[50] For spring 2018, twenty years after her brother's death, Donatella Versace built a collection from his archive and closed it with five models closely associated with him.^[51]

Capri Holdings, 2018–2025

On 25 September 2018 Michael Kors Holdings agreed to buy all of Gianni Versace S.p.A. at an enterprise value of €1.83 billion, about $2.12 billion, and to rename itself Capri Holdings.^[44] The purchase closed on 31 December 2018, when the Versace family reinvested €150 million of the proceeds in Capri shares; Donatella Versace stayed on as chief creative officer and Akeroyd as chief executive.^[13] Emmanuel Gintzburger, previously chief executive of Alexander McQueen, took over as Versace's chief executive in 2022.^[14]

In 2023 Donatella Versace and Dua Lipa presented La Vacanza, a women's collection they designed together, at the house's first see-now-buy-now show, on the French Riviera.^[52] Capri's own planned sale to Tapestry was abandoned after a challenge by antitrust regulators, and Prada, which had been interested for years, moved to buy Versace.^[53]

In March 2025 Capri announced that Donatella Versace would become the house's chief brand ambassador on 1 April, after almost 30 years as its creative head, and that Dario Vitale, previously design and image director of Miu Miu, would succeed her as chief creative officer.^[6][5] Her last collection was for fall-winter 2025.^[10][54] On 10 April 2025 the Prada Group agreed to buy 100 percent of Versace from Capri at an enterprise value of €1.25 billion, or $1.375 billion.^[2]

Vitale presented his only collection, for spring-summer 2026, in Milan in September 2025; W described him as the first person from outside the Versace family to lead the house's design.^[55][56] The Prada Group completed its purchase on 2 December 2025, and Lorenzo Bertelli, son of Miuccia Prada and Patrizio Bertelli, became Versace's executive chairman.^[7][53][14] Two days later the house confirmed that Vitale would leave on 12 December.^[55]

The Prada Group and Pieter Mulier, 2026

On 5 February 2026 the Prada Group named Pieter Mulier, then creative director of ALAÏA, chief creative officer of Versace from 1 July 2026, reporting to Bertelli.^[8] Presenting the group's 2025 results in March, Bertelli said Mulier would show his first collection at the start of 2027 and revive the Atelier couture line, and WWD reported that Versace Jeans Couture, made under licence by Swinger International, would end, leaving the house without a sub-brand.^[28]

Gintzburger resigned with effect from 23 June 2026, and Prada said details of the new governance would follow.^[14] At the end of August WWD reported that no successor had been named, that Bertelli was leading the brand, that ten stores had closed and that first-half sales had reached €350 million.^[15]

Between designers the house leaned on its archive. Its La Vacanza 2026 campaign, Versace Obsessed, was photographed by Steven Meisel among tearsheets of the Versace advertisements he shot between 1993 and 2004, and the fall-winter 2026 campaign, a second chapter by Meisel with creative direction by Ferdinando Verderi, was attributed to no designer.^[57][58]

Mulier started on 1 July 2026, and his first Atelier Versace design appeared on Nicole Kidman at the Los Angeles premiere of Practical Magic 2 on 31 August.^[9][59] On 28 October the house told WWD that Atelier Versace would return to Paris Couture Week in January 2027 with his debut collection, its first dedicated runway show since July 2016.^[9] In its results for the first nine months of 2026 the Prada Group reported €441 million of net revenues from Versace and said the house was laying the foundations for its creative debut in 2027.^[29] WWD noted that the results call made no mention of a new chief executive.^[16]

The holiday 2026 campaign, photographed by Carlijn Jacobs, is set in a single train carriage on a journey from alpine snow to spring landscapes.^[60] In September 2026 WWD reported that Donatella Versace would launch a fashion and beauty business of her own as its chief creative officer, in a joint venture with the US online retailer Revolve Group; its name and first products, beginning with beauty, were to follow in the coming months.^[38]

Creative directors

The house has had four creative leads in 48 years, two of them appointed since March 2025.^[5][8]

By the house's own account, Mulier studied design and architecture and was chosen by Raf Simons to work with him at Jil Sander, where he headed accessories, shoes and bags, before becoming design director at Christian Dior, global creative director of Calvin Klein and creative director of ALAÏA.^[1] Announcing his appointment, Bertelli said Prada had identified Mulier as the right person for Versace while it was still considering the acquisition.^[8] He left ALAÏA after its show in Paris in March 2026.^[14]

WWD wrote that the lace gown Nicole Kidman wore, his first Atelier Versace design, gave little away about the direction he would take.^[59] Capri's titles for Donatella Versace varied: its 2018 announcements called her chief creative officer, and its last annual report before the sale uses that title as well as artistic director, a role it says she held for almost 30 years.^[5][13]

House codes

In Macau, home of the first Palazzo Versace hotel in Asia, the house renders three of its codes in sculpture, carpet, terrazzo and mosaic: the Medusa head that symbolises the house, the geometric Greca and the Barocco print.^[4]

The Medusa

Medusa is the Gorgon of Greek myth whose face turned onlookers to stone.^[41] One of Gianni Versace's explanations for choosing her head as the house's emblem was: “The Medusa is seduction and I want to seduce people.”^[30] Donatella Versace has recalled a second reason he gave, that anyone who falls in love with Medusa can never escape her.^[33]

Sources differ on the date. Grazia says the founder presented the Medusa head logo in 1993, while The Met's entry for a spring-summer 1991 dress already calls the Medusa emblem an icon of the house.^[33][40] By 2018 the company described its products as all bearing the Medusa logo.^[44] It now uses several Medusas: a three-dimensional metal head on La Medusa and Emblème bags, a leather Medusa Cameo patch on Pivot, Rivière and Roomy bags, a metal Medusa closure on the Vivian, and the smaller Medusa '95, set between Greek-style clasps.^{[18][24][22][62][63][23][64]}

The Greca

The Greca, which the house describes as a geometric motif, sits beside the Medusa and the Barocco among its codes.^[4] It names a range of low-top and platform sneakers, the Greca and La Greca, and decorates the EVA sole of the Mercury sneaker of 2024.^[27][65]

Barocco and printed silk

L'Officiel dates the first Barocco prints, drawn from the ornament and colour of Baroque art, to spring-summer 1992, and notes that Gianni Versace printed them mostly on silk and other reflective fabrics.^[41] The house calls prints central to its codes, used on silk shirts and foulards as well as knitwear and bags, and in November 2026 its US site grouped more than a dozen as heritage prints, among them Barocco, New Barocco, Neoclassical Barocco, Teatro and Medusa Club.^[66] For spring 2026 Dario Vitale replaced the famous faces of the 1991 Warhol prints with anonymous, hand-painted ones.^[67]

Metal mesh

Mesh goes back to Gianni Versace's evening dresses of the early 1980s, described in the history above.^[3][34] Donatella Versace kept it in use: the V&A holds the gold metal-mail Atelier Versace gown she wore to the 2012 Met Gala, which hangs from a boned inner corset that carries its weight, and for spring 2025 she showed a version 3D-printed from recycled nylon polymers.^[68][39] A metal-mesh mini bag is among the house's current small bags.^[69]

Safety pins, studs and gold hardware

Gianni Versace treated hardware as jewelry, L'Officiel notes, using chains as straps, couture pins and large metal ornaments, mostly in gold tones.^[41] The safety pin entered the codes with the dress Elizabeth Hurley wore in 1994 and has recurred since, and the V&A holds a black patent 'Safety Pin' handbag from Gianni Versace Couture of the same year.^[17][41][70] The straps and buckles of the 1992 Miss S&M collection came back when Donatella Versace paid homage to it for fall-winter 2019.^[41]

Pop art and pop culture

The pop references run from the Warhol dresses of 1991 to the Medusa Biggie sunglasses, named after the rapper The Notorious B.I.G., and the Chain Reaction sneaker designed with 2 Chainz in 2018.^[40][71][72]

Atelier Versace

Atelier Versace is the house's haute couture line, housed in the palazzo at Via Gesù 12 in Milan.^[4] Te Papa dates its launch, as Versace Atelier, to 1989, and by 1994 Gianni Versace was presenting couture in Paris.^[36][43]

Museum pieces show its range. A fall-winter 1991–92 evening dress at The Met joins quilted satin to lace pressed into narrow pleats, a deliberate test of couture technique, and the V&A's spring-summer 1995 Atelier gown has a skirt of four swagged layers of pleated silk and tulle under a bodice covered in sequins and shells.^[73][74] In 2016 WWD recalled that the house had returned to the couture calendar after leaving it in 2004, and that the Atelier, then 25 to 30 seamstresses, had been spared the restructuring cuts begun in 2009 by chief executive Gian Giacomo Ferraris.^[50]

After its last dedicated runway show, in July 2016, the Atelier kept working through private orders and red-carpet commissions.^[9] The house's account of the 2022 Met Gala describes custom Atelier Versace for Blake Lively and Cardi B, its page on the 2024 gala describes the Atelier's designs and names Dwyane Wade, Iris Law and Jude Law among the guests in Versace, and its spring-summer 2023 Atelier collection ranged from full ballgowns to cinched minidresses with cowl necks, metal studs and caged constructions.^[61][75][76] Reviving the line is part of the Prada Group's plan, and Mulier's first collection will be for the Atelier at Paris Couture Week in January 2027.^[28][9]

Bags

Versace organises its handbags into lines, most of them identified by a version of the Medusa.^[18][22][24] When it agreed to buy the house in 2018, Michael Kors Holdings set out a plan to raise accessories and footwear from 35 to 60 percent of Versace's revenues.^[44]

La Medusa

La Medusa bags carry a three-dimensional metal Medusa head, applied to top handles, totes, crossbody bags and pouches in leather or canvas and in several sizes.^[18]

Medusa '95 and Kleio

The Medusa '95 line was introduced at the spring-summer 2024 show in Milan with a horizontal tote and a handbag carrying a central metal Medusa, a new version of the small Medusa held by Grecian metal hardware on the shoulder straps of spring-summer 1995 evening dresses.^[19] In the Versace Icons campaign of 2024 the hardware runs like a belt across structured bags, and the Kleio, a pillow-like crossbody bag in nappa plongé, joined the family with the fall-winter 2024 collection.^[80][20]

Severine

The Severine line, made up of totes and shoulder bags in leather or coated canvas, is defined by what the house calls a distinctive structured geometry.^[21]

Pivot

Pivot bucket bags come in suede, canvas or leather, each with a leather Medusa Cameo patch at the centre and a chain.^[22] PurseBlog reports that the line made its debut on Dario Vitale's spring-summer 2026 runway.^[79]

Vivian

Vivian bags, from clutches to totes and shoulder bags in leather or suede, carry seasonal prints or embroidery and close with a metal Medusa.^[23]

Emblème, Rivière and Roomy

Emblème bags are bowling shapes in soft nappa with a central three-dimensional Medusa.^[24] Rivière totes, in canvas and raffia printed by season, and Roomy Boston and duffel bags carry the leather Medusa Cameo instead.^[62][63]

Shoes

In November 2026 the house's women's shoes ran from the Gianni pumps through platform sandals to the Greca sneakers.^[25][26][27] Its pumps and boots also carry other names, among them Camille, Clelia, Etra, Marisa, Tina, Houston, Roxy and Sylvester.^[25][81]

Gianni and Gianni Ribbon

The Gianni line runs from 90 mm pumps in leather and metallic nappa to nappa ankle and knee-high boots.^[25][81] The Gianni Ribbon versions come as patent pumps at 85 and 110 mm, patent slingbacks from 45 to 110 mm and 140 mm platform sandals in leather or patent.^[25][26]

Medusa '95 and Valentina sandals

The house's Medusa '95 hardware appears on shoes as well as bags and clothes, including 120 mm suede wedge sandals, and the Valentina platform sandals stand 140 to 145 mm high in nappa, metallic leather or embellished finishes.^[64][26]

Greca sneakers

The Greca sneakers come in leather, suede, suede and shearling, jacquard canvas, nylon, printed canvas and printed silk twill, and the La Greca and jacquard styles add platform soles.^[27][26]

The Chain Reaction and later sneakers

The Chain Reaction, designed with the rapper 2 Chainz and moulded with a chain-link sole, was previewed by him in January 2018; WWD reported that April that it would go on sale on 26 April in seven colourways at versace.com, the SoHo store in New York and the resale app Goat, the brand's only outside retailer for it.^[82][72] WWD identified Salehe Bembury as Versace's head designer of sneakers at the time.^[72]

The Mercury sneaker of 2024 has a shell-like upper hand-woven from 16 metres of cord, assembled from 86 components on an EVA sole decorated with the Greca.^[65] The Onitsuka Tiger x Versace TAI-CHI Sakura, a reworking of the Japanese brand's tai-chi trainer made at the Sanin factory in Tottori, Japan, was presented with Vitale's spring-summer 2026 collection at the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana on 26 September 2025.^[83][84]

Ready-to-wear

The University of the Arts London's database of fashion exhibitions, describing The Met's 1997 retrospective, presents a designer who began with practical, luxurious sportswear in the 1970s and early 1980s and went on to build an image of a strong, openly sensual woman made for the runway and the media.^[45] AnOther's account of the autumn-winter 1991 collection lists cropped bolero jackets, Lycra catsuits in baroque patterns, layered plaids, pleated tennis skirts and studded leather, with dresses laced up or cinched by wide belts.^[31]

Leather and Western references reached eveningwear: the V&A owns a spring-summer 1992 evening ensemble of black leather waistcoat and trousers with studs and fringing over a printed silk shirt, shown in its Streetstyle exhibition of 1994–95 as Fashion Cowgirl.^[85] A men's collection followed the first women's collection a year later, and for spring 2025 the men's looks included Medusa-print leather jackets and sheer floral shirts.^[11][39]

In Donatella Versace's last years the house built its Versace Icons line, worn in its 2024 campaign by Anne Hathaway and Cillian Murphy, on suits that break into separates and on dresses for day and evening, including a rib-knit shirt dress with a row of Medusa buttons that the house calls one of her favourites.^[80] Dario Vitale turned the house's colour and sex appeal toward T-shirts, sweaters, blousons, vests and high-waisted jeans for spring 2026, and Mulier's first design was a couture gown in hand-intarsia lace.^[67][59]

Denim also came through Versace Jeans Couture, made under licence by Swinger, a line the Prada Group is ending; on Vêtir it is listed as a separate designer, Versace Jeans Couture.^[5][28]

The first module below gathers the house's current jersey gowns, the second its metal mesh and the third its printed silk.

Jewelry and accessories

Capri's 2025 annual report listed fashion jewelry among the categories Versace sells and named its licensees for eyewear, Luxottica, and for watches and writing instruments, Vertime.^[5] Medusa jewelry goes back at least to fall-winter 1992, when a Medusa medallion necklace appeared on the runway, and the safety-pin motif has since recurred on earrings.^[41]

Belts carry the house hardware at a smaller scale, the Medusa '95 among it, and are sized by the circumference in centimetres where they are worn.^[64][86]

The Medusa Biggie sunglasses take their name from The Notorious B.I.G., and the house cast Sabrina Carpenter and the basketball player Alexandre Sarr in their 2024 campaign.^[71]

Fragrance, home and hotels

EuroItalia makes Versace fragrances under licence.^[5] The house has named Ding Yuxi its global fragrance ambassador, in a campaign for Versace Pour Homme and Bright Crystal.^[87]

Versace Home, which the house calls one of the first homeware lines created by a fashion brand, is made under licences held by Rosenthal for tableware and porcelain and by Poltrona Frau for furniture.^[78][5] For Milan Design Week 2026 the house showed the Versace Home collection at Via Durini 11 from 20 to 26 April, and for fall-winter 2025 Donatella Versace cut Versace Home quilts into a puffer jacket, a tutu and a ballgown.^[88][54] The Prada Group counts interiors and hospitality among the house's activities.^[89]

Palazzo Versace Macau, in one of the three towers of the Grand Lisboa Palace resort, is the first Palazzo Versace hotel in Asia, with 271 rooms and suites; its lobby reproduces the house's Milan palazzo in more than 80,000 hand-laid enamel mosaic tiles.^[4]

Exhibitions

Museums began collecting Versace in Gianni Versace's lifetime: he gave the V&A a collection of his work in 1985 and gave The Met dresses in 1993.^[34][40]

Signature pieces

1. Metal-mesh evening dresses, from 1982: The Met dates its example to 1982, and the V&A's Oroton aluminium-mesh dresses of 1983–84 are the originals of dresses worn by Princess Caroline of Monaco.^[3][34]
2. The Warhol dresses, spring-summer 1991: Marilyn Monroe and James Dean printed on silk evening dresses, one of which is at The Met.^[40]
3. The supermodel finale, autumn-winter 1991: red, yellow and black cocktail dresses for Evangelista, Crawford, Campbell and Turlington.^[31]
4. Barocco silk prints, spring-summer 1992: the Baroque-derived prints that L'Officiel dates to that season.^[41]
5. Miss S&M, autumn-winter 1992: the bondage collection of black leather, straps and metal.^[41][42]
6. The safety-pin dress, 1994: worn by Elizabeth Hurley to the London premiere of Four Weddings and a Funeral and shown at the V&A in 2002.^[17]
7. Medusa '95 hardware, spring-summer 1995: a small Medusa between Greek-style clasps on evening-dress straps, revived for bags in 2024.^[19]
8. The jungle-print dress, 2000: worn by Jennifer Lopez to the Grammy Awards and remade for her on the spring 2020 runway.^[46]
9. The gold metal-mail gown, 2012: the Atelier Versace dress Donatella Versace wore to the Met Gala, now at the V&A.^[68]
10. The Chain Reaction sneaker, 2018: designed with 2 Chainz on a sole moulded as a chain.^[72][82]
11. The Medusa '95 bag, 2024: introduced on the spring-summer 2024 runway in Milan.^[19]

Runway

Pieter Mulier has not yet shown a collection for Versace, and the house's list of shows ends with Dario Vitale's spring-summer 2026 collection.^[9][52] His announced debut, Vitale's collection and Donatella Versace's last two shows come first below, then earlier landmarks.

Atelier Versace, Paris, January 2027 (announced)

Versace confirmed to WWD on 28 October 2026 that Mulier's first collection would mark the Atelier's return to Paris Couture Week, scheduled for 25 to 28 January 2027, with the date and venue still to be announced.^[9] Earlier in the year Bertelli had promised the first collection at the start of 2027, and Dazed had reported a debut expected in February.^[28][58]

Spring-Summer 2026, Milan

Vitale's only collection was presented on 26 September 2025 at the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan's oldest art museum, which the house staged as a private residence across two floors, with a soundscape by Terraforma.^[56][55][84] WWD's Miles Socha found it closer to an East Village disco than to the Met Gala, with T-shirts, sweaters, blousons, vests and jeans in place of red-carpet gowns and hand-painted faces that echoed the 1991 Warhol prints; Donatella Versace did not attend.^[67] W later described its reviews as mostly positive.^[55]

Fall-Winter 2025, Milan

Donatella Versace's last show, staged in a Milan tram depot, built the collection on the house's baroque prints and on quilts from the Versace Home collection, turned into a puffer jacket, a tutu and a corseted ballgown.^[54][78] WWD noted that the show notes credited studded V-shaped collars to fall 1991, offset shoulders to fall 1997 and swagged-fringe dresses to the Atelier's fall 1998 couture, and the collection introduced the Virtus bag.^[54][78] There were no previews or backstage interviews while Capri looked for a buyer.^[54]

Spring-Summer 2025, Milan

Shown at the Castello Sforzesco, the spring 2025 collection took the clashing colours and slinky slips of the spring 1997 Versus collection as its reference; WWD's Booth Moore found it closer to the high street than to luxury until the tailoring arrived, and noted metal mesh reworked in 3D-printed recycled nylon.^[39]

Spring-Summer 2020, Milan

Jennifer Lopez closed the spring 2020 show in a new, sleeveless version of the jungle-print dress she had worn to the Grammy Awards in 2000.^[46] The house presented the collection as a tribute to the moment, twenty years earlier, that led to Google Images.^[47]

Spring-Summer 2018, Milan

For spring 2018, on the twentieth anniversary of her brother's death, Donatella Versace filled the Terrazza Triennale runway with archival prints and closed the show with Carla Bruni, Claudia Schiffer, Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford and Helena Christensen in gold chain mail, an echo of a 1994 Richard Avedon campaign, to Freedom! '90.^[51]

Autumn-Winter 1991, Milan

Inside the Fiera Milano exhibition hall, the show ran on a white marble catwalk 15 metres long, with the four supermodels of the Freedom! '90 video closing it; AnOther records that Tim Blanks later called it “a Fashion moment of biblical proportions”.^[31]

The first collection, Milan, March 1978

Gianni Versace presented his first women's collection under his own name at the Palazzo della Permanente on 28 March 1978.^[10]

Celebrities and the red carpet

• Nicole Kidman: Pieter Mulier's first Atelier Versace design, an asymmetric black gown in hand-intarsia lace with a deep rounded neckline edged in black satin ribbon, Los Angeles premiere of Practical Magic 2, 31 August 2026.^[9][59]
• Blake Lively: a reworked version of a 2006 Versace gown in cotton-candy pink, Met Gala, New York, May 2026.^[95]
• Amanda Seyfried: a custom strapless white Versace gown with a sweetheart neckline and a white shawl, 83rd Golden Globe Awards, Beverly Hills, 11 January 2026.^[96]
• Julia Roberts: the first publicly attributed look by Dario Vitale, a navy jacket over a pinstripe shirt with dark-wash jeans, at the photo call for After the Hunt at the 2025 Venice Film Festival, followed hours later by a fitted Versace dress at the film's premiere; Amanda Seyfried wore the same jacket, shirt and jeans at her own Venice photo call less than two days later.^[97][59]
• Dwyane Wade, Iris Law and Jude Law: named by the house among the guests in Versace at the 2024 Met Gala, for which it made Atelier designs on the theme The Garden of Time.^[75]
• Blake Lively: custom Atelier Versace with a copper-foil bow that unfolded to reveal a verdigris layer, in homage to the Statue of Liberty, Met Gala, 2022.^[61]
• Cardi B: an embroidered Atelier Versace dress that took 20 members of the atelier 1,300 hours and a kilometre of gold chains, Met Gala, 2022.^[61]
• Jennifer Lopez: the plunging green jungle-print dress, 42nd Grammy Awards, 2000, and its sleeveless remake on the spring 2020 runway in Milan.^[46]
• Elizabeth Hurley: the black safety-pin dress, London premiere of Four Weddings and a Funeral, May 1994.^[17]

The house's own announcements name its campaign faces and ambassadors: NINGNING as global brand ambassador in the 2024 Kleio campaign; Ding Yuxi as global fragrance ambassador; Sabrina Carpenter, in the 2024 Medusa Biggie campaign with the basketball player Alexandre Sarr and again for La Vacanza 2025, her second Versace campaign; Anne Hathaway and Cillian Murphy for Versace Icons; and Dua Lipa, who co-designed La Vacanza 2023.^{[20][87][77][71][80][52]} Donatella Versace herself became chief brand ambassador in April 2025.^[6]

Sizing and fit

Versace labels women's clothing in Italian sizes from IT 36 (XXS) to IT 52 (4XL), and its size guide gives these equivalents.^[98]

The chart is built on body measurements rather than garment sizes, from bust and under-bust to waist, hips, sleeve length and shoulders; an IT 40, for example, corresponds to an 87 cm bust, a 69 cm waist and 93 cm hips.^[98]

Shoes come in Italian sizes, which the house treats as identical to EU sizes, from 35 to 42 with half sizes. On its chart the US size is the Italian size minus 30 and the UK size the Italian size minus 33, so an IT 38 is a US 8 and a UK 5, for a foot 25.3 cm long; the guide refers shoppers to each product's Size and Fit notes for the shape of the footbed.^[99] Belts run from 55 to 110 in steps of five, each number being the wearer's circumference in centimetres where the belt sits, with 70 listed as small, 80 as medium and 90 as large.^[86]

Shopping Versace on Vêtir

Vêtir carries new Versace from the house's own store and from the department stores and luxury retailers we work with, across Versace clothing, Versace bags, Versace shoes, belts and accessories and jewelry and watches. Menswear has its own pages for men's clothing and men's shoes, and the designer page, Versace on Vêtir, shows every new piece at once.

For which pieces to buy and how they fit, read our Versace guide; for the group that now owns the house, our Prada guide. Versace's Gianni pumps appear in the best party shoes, a metal-mesh slip dress in the best holiday dresses, a draped Versace dress in the best cocktail dresses and the Medusa hoops in the best statement earrings. To build an outfit around a Versace piece you already own, ask our AI stylist. The three modules below show the newest Versace bags, shoes and dresses each time the page loads.