Donatella Versace (born May 2, 1955) is an Italian fashion designer, as was her brother, the late Gianni Versace, the founder of the Versace clothing brand. Her current title is Vice-President of the Versace Group and Chief Designer of the fashion line. She owns 20 percent of the entire stock market assets of Versace. Her brother, Santo Versace, owns 30 percent. Donatella's daughter Allegra Versace inherited 50% of the company stock after Gianni Versace died.

Versace was born in the Italian city of Reggio di Calabria, the youngest of four children in her family, her father being a personal financier to the Italian aristocracy. An older sister, Tina, died at the age of twelve from an improperly treated tetanus infection. In the mid 1970s, Donatella followed her older brother, Giovanni ("Gianni"), to pursue knitwear design in Florence, Italy. Donatella had planned to work for her brother as Public Relations, but she was more valuable to Gianni as a "muse and critic", according to Donatella during an interview with Vogue. Through her closeness to her brother's enterprises, Donatella plunged into the fashion world. A decade later, during the 1980s, Gianni launched a perfume dedicated to her, Blonde, and gave her her own diffusion label, Versus, which remains a well-known Versace inner line.

Donatella is the first to use notable celebrities to broadcast her clothing into the world on the catwalk and other public media such as advertisements, instead of using unknown models. Another member of the growing Versace success was Santo Versace S.p.A., Donatella's brother, who is also a fashion designer and the owner of Finanziaria Versace, an established Versace branch. Donatella soon proved to be the public relations giant within the Versace label and spread its name throughout Europe and most of the United States. Donatella chose to place some of her good friends, Madonna, Christina Aguilera, Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Demi Moore, in high esteem in the Versace advertising sector, making them and other A-List celebrities the persona and image of Versace