The Italian designer steps back into the spotlight 18 months after leaving Versace, betting her name on a Gen Z–focused digital retail platform.
On Monday, September 21, 2026, Donatella Versace announced a joint venture with Los Angeles–based Revolve Group Inc. to build a new, independent fashion and beauty company with her serving as chief creative officer, according to a joint press release issued in Milan and Los Angeles. The venture, still unnamed, pairs Versace's design leadership with Revolve's e-commerce infrastructure, data analytics and global digital reach, marking her first major creative undertaking since leaving the house her brother Gianni founded.
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Inside the Structure of the New Venture
The company is a standalone entity, deliberately separated from the Versace house that Donatella led for nearly three decades, according to the press release cited by WWD and Vogue. As chief creative officer, she will oversee brand identity, product design, partnerships and cultural positioning, while Revolve supplies technology, logistics, consumer intelligence and marketing muscle drawn from its base of millions of online shoppers.
Revolve, listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker RVLV, described the arrangement as giving Donatella "an entirely new platform and the freedom to build something from the ground up," according to the company's statement reported by Reuters. The press release itself calls the project "an independent venture reflecting Donatella's personal creative vision, designed around how a new generation discovers style, experiences culture, shops, shares, and connects," language echoed across Vogue and multiple trade outlets.
No financial terms — including equity split, investment size or projected revenue — have been disclosed. Coverage from outlets including theindustry.fashion and nssmag.com instead emphasizes strategic positioning and demographic targeting over dealmaking specifics, suggesting the announcement was framed primarily as a creative and cultural launch rather than a financial one.
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From Versace's Creative Helm to an Independent Restart
Donatella's new chapter follows a defining transition. On March 13, 2025, she announced she would step down as Versace's chief creative officer after nearly 30 years, moving into a newly created chief brand ambassador role, according to Reuters and CNN. Dario Vitale, previously design and image director at Miu Miu, formally succeeded her effective April 1, 2025. Donatella had taken over Versace's design leadership in 1997 after Gianni Versace's murder, steering the house's bold aesthetic through nearly three decades of shifting fashion cycles.
The backdrop to her departure involved significant upheaval at Versace's parent company. Capri Holdings had agreed in August 2023 to an $8.5 billion sale to Tapestry, the Coach and Kate Spade parent, a deal that cleared EU and Japanese regulators by April 2024 but was mutually terminated in November 2024 after U.S. regulatory approval appeared unlikely, according to Capri Holdings' own announcement. Ownership uncertainty resolved differently than expected: Prada completed its acquisition of Versace from Capri for approximately €1.3 billion on December 3, 2025, reshaping the Italian luxury landscape just months before Donatella's Revolve announcement.
Why Revolve, and Why Beauty First
Revolve has spent roughly a decade cultivating a reputation as a "Gen Z-loved" digital retailer built on influencer marketing, social media virality and fast-moving drop cycles, according to Reuters and InStyle. While the company has run designer collaborations and celebrity capsule collections before, trade publications describe this joint venture as its most substantial creative partnership to date — effectively installing a globally recognized designer atop a brand built entirely on Revolve's digital backbone.
The venture will launch first in beauty, according to WWD, Vogue and multiple other outlets, before expanding into fashion and broader lifestyle categories. That sequencing allows the brand to enter at more accessible price points and build community engagement through fast product cycles and social sharing before rolling out higher-priced fashion lines. Initial distribution will target the United States, Latin America, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East — markets that align with Revolve's existing customer base and youth-oriented growth strategy, per reporting from Evoke and theindustry.fashion.
What Comes Next for the Unnamed Label
Neither the brand's name nor its first products have been revealed. Multiple outlets, including WWD and theindustry.fashion, report these details will be announced "in the coming months," while Page Six and The Cut cite the press release indicating a broader launch is expected sometime in 2027, starting with beauty.
Fashion media have broadly framed the announcement as Donatella's return to the creative driver's seat after stepping away from the house bearing her family name. Analysts and trade commentators note the symbolic weight of a 71-year-old designer aligning with a platform built around Gen Z and millennial social habits, framing it as a test of whether legacy design talent can resonate with younger consumers when delivered through influencer-driven digital channels. No major controversies or negative reactions have surfaced in coverage reviewed so far, though some commentary questions whether star designers can compete in a market increasingly dominated by micro-brands and creator-led labels.
For Donatella, the project represents her first fully independent venture since Versace's ownership changed hands and Prada assumed control — a platform, as Revolve put it, to build something from the ground up without the constraints of an established luxury house or corporate parent dictating strategy.
