Daphne Joins Donatella In Elizaveta Porodina Images & GREAT Molly Young GQ Interview April 2018

Donatella Versace has yet another interview, appearing with Daphne Groeneveld and Alton Mason in the April 2018 issue of GQ Magazine US. Elisabetta Dal Bello styles the shoot for images by Elizaveta Porodina. / Hair by Davide Diodovich

Molly Young conducts the interview -- which is the best one I've read in this cycle. 

The palazzo at Via Gesù 12 in Milan is an 18th-century building that houses the Versace showroom and a two-bedroom apartment that once belonged to Gianni Versace. In a suite of rooms above the apartment, Donatella Versace is being photographed for this story, taking deep, patient breaths as she sits before a mirror and explains to the photographer that the left side of her face is better than the right side. The shoot is scored by a remix of “White Lines,” which seems maybe insensitive, given that Donatella was addicted to cocaine for 18 years until 2005, when Elton John urged her into rehab. Then again, she is known for her sense of irony.

The irony is a complicating and redemptive layer on a woman who could easily be mistaken for a caricature of a Fashion Person. Is Donatella Versace imperious? She is! Does she have an elaborate accent? She does! Is she scandalously thin, with arms of Twizzler width and definition? Yes! And so much more, too. Her hair is glow-in-the-dark blonde. (A weave, partly.) Her heels are five inches, minimum. Her pants are tighter than the skin on an apple. She has a statement nose. Instead of nodding yes, she dips her chin one centimeter in assent. Instead of shaking her head no, she tilts her face ten degrees to the left. This is the body language of an individual who expects others to amplify and disseminate her wishes, which they do. Her black-clad attendants adjust hemlines and offer bottled water and generally cement the impression that their boss's presence is permanently plural—that when a person refers to “Donatella,” he is always referring to “Donatella plus five to ten members of her squad.” These loyalists orbit their tiny queen with brisk nods and folded arms saying Si-si-si and No-no-no and We love this and There's the drama!

Archive images: 1) Gianni with a gaggle of models in 1991. Much of Versace’s early exposure resulted from controversial campaigns and partnerships with musicians—friends, muses, and occasional models all wrapped into one. By Vittoriano Rastelli. 2) Gianni and Donatella at the family palazzo at Lake Como in 1988. “I never thought of leaving the company,” she says. “I had to stay. Gianni trained me—the last two years of his life especially—Gianni trained me to do everything.” Estate Of Evelyn Hofer