Tending the Flame

“No, no. Audrey should wear the bathing suit. Chandra’s hips will look too big in it.”

The decision to have a 19-year-old French waif walk down the runway in a bikini of glittering crystals is voiced softly, the words buffed by an Italian accent that smooths any sharp edges. The common perception is that all supermodels are blessed with perfect bodies. But Donatella Versace, the woman in charge, knows better. And she knows exactly what she wants. Next?

Two days before Wednesday night’s Fire & Ice Ball, Donatella huddles in a makeshift backstage area at Universal Studios with a coven of fashion show veterans. Steps away, where a gigantic tent has been erected on a dusty field, workers are conjuring up a wonderland fit for one of Los Angeles’ premier fund-raising events. A fashion show of 129 styles from various Versace collections and a group of new designs created just to be shown at Fire & Ice will be the centerpiece of the evening’s entertainment. Beyond the basic perfectionism that is endemic to world-class fashion designers, support of the ball represents a considerable investment for the Versace company. If the fashion show and a number of other appearances during Donatella’s visit go well, the value of the international publicity will be priceless.

So details such as what model should wear which outfit count. Polaroids of the rare breed of “I don’t get out of bed for less than $10,000” mannequins are tacked on a bulletin board. Donatella and her helpers shuffle the snapshots, arranging the order of clothes for maximum impact. They take for granted the fact that Versace designs, known for their exuberantly trashy glitz, would look dazzling on a Universal tour guide. They have persuaded the most celebrated models in the world to donate their time because pursuing excellence is as natural to Donatella as breathing. Of course the top “girls” are coming, but how big an impression can she get her stars to make?

“Let’s put Naomi in six things,” she says.

“She won’t have time to change,” an assistant points out.

“She can do it. We’ll have everyone else wear five, but I want Naomi in six.”

From Dressing the Stars

to Becoming One

As deliberate as such pronouncements are, Donatella alternates them with admissions of panic. “When we hire the girls for our shows in Milan, we’re pretty sure they’ll show up. But for a charity thing like this, you never know, so I’ll be worried till I see them here,” she says. This mix of determination and vulnerability is the key to Donatella’s appeal. A curious blend of success, tragedy, charisma and moxie has catapulted her to the same level of fame as the celebrities she dresses. Her look--long, straight, bottle-blond hair, perpetual honey tan, tiny, toned body shrink-wrapped in sexy clothes--is admirable in its theatricality, and befits someone often caught in the paparazzi’s glare. She tempers it with a wide smile, a robust laugh and a Mediterranean warmth that makes the wary famous trust and befriend her.

The carefully planned sequence of the show may be disrupted if a model misses her plane or Madonna or Goldie Hawn or any of a number of other stars who will wear Versace gowns to the ball want to wear a dress that is in the show lineup. With the order as set as it can be for the moment, Donatella reviews the music with a deejay imported from London. “We like energy in our shows,” she says. “We rock the audience. And Gianni taught me to start on time. It’s something I learned from him. I could never start a show late now.”

Gianni. A year and a half after her brother’s murder, Donatella drops his name into her conversation frequently. Santo, the eldest sibling and CEO of the firm, does too. “Gianni always did many things for charity,” he says, “so for us to be here for Fire & Ice is the right thing to do. It is what Gianni would have done.”

Donatella, who is now 43 and had worked with her brother since she was a university student, instantly became the figurehead and chief designer of an international company with annual sales of $800 million. “In the first year I threw myself into work just to numb myself, so I couldn’t think about what had happened,” she says. “I didn’t question myself in the beginning. Only later could I stop to think about whether I was doing the right thing.”

The fashion world wished her well. At her first solo show in Milan, the aristocracy of Italian designers, from Giorgio Armani to Alberta Ferretti and Angela Missoni, turned out to show their support. But they, and millions of loyal customers, wondered could she carry on the Versace name alone?

“I didn’t have a choice. If I could do it or couldn’t do it, I had to do it. Maybe I’d make a mistake, but I had to go on. Six months later, I felt I couldn’t go on like this. It was too much. The company is huge and it’s a lot, a lot of work. I always worked very hard, but it’s a great difference trying to do it without Gianni.”

With Santo’s help, Donatella initiated some corporate restructuring, eliminating unimportant licensees and consolidating staff.

“Now I’m doing this and I like it,” she says. “Gianni empowered me to do this, and I’m going to go forward.”

It’s slow going, moving forward through a gawking crowd at Neiman Marcus. One day before the ball, Donatella zips all but a flash of cleavage into a black mohair jumpsuit from her fall collection and spends an hour at the store, which sells the nearly year-old Versace cosmetics line exclusively in Los Angeles. She greets big spenders who received personal invitations from Neiman’s, but she had vetoed an advertisement announcing her appearance. “There is a concern about security, so we’ve kept it low key,” says Neiman Marcus Vice President and general manager John Martens.

Bodyguards surround her everywhere, constant members of an entourage that usually includes drivers, publicists, personal assistants, a makeup artist and sometimes Paul Beck, her American-born husband of 14 years, who oversees the Versace advertising campaigns.

The theory behind high-profile designers offering cosmetics is that the products make it possible for women everywhere to imitate makeup effects presented on the runway. In the case of Versace, that’s a particularly attractive proposition. It would seem that most designers would want their models to look beautiful, but even while a cult of strange and ugly reigned on the runway, Versace stubbornly blushed and glossed their girls into a gorgeous approximation of a postcoital glow. If that image wasn’t seductive enough, the makeup’s packaging is as luxurious as a beaded Versace gown. The company symbol, a Medusa head, is embossed in pots of pressed powder and blush topped with pale gold and silver Medusa lids.

“With the makeup, everyone has a chance to own a little of Versace,” says Linda Switzer, vice president of sales and marketing for the cosmetics division. Women who desire more than a little purchase $260 gift boxes, which Donatella signs, smiling as they stare. During her brief stop at the store, two $3,500 Baccarat crystal decanters of V’e, a Versace fragrance, are sold. Donatella wears Blonde, the scent created and named for her.

‘A Diamond Hides Nothing’

Crystals and diamonds are a recurring Donatella motif that she lent to the ball (unintentionally punning the ice in Fire & Ice). When ball founder and chairman Lilly Tartikoff first discussed Versace’s participation with Donatella, the designer said, “the theme of the ball will be diamonds.”

“What theme?” Tartikoff thought. The ball had never had an explicit theme before, beyond celebrating advances in cancer research and showcasing the work of a designer. But if Donatella wanted a theme, so be it.

“I love diamonds, and I love them for a reason,” Donatella says, a 20-carat canary diamond sparkling on her right hand. “A diamond is clear and transparent, so it hides nothing. It’s about honesty, beauty and strength.”

Simulated diamonds, actually 100,000 Swarovski crystals, were shipped here as ball decorations. When Donatella saw workers laying the jewels under a lighted glass runway, she thought, “Oh my God. What have I done?” Centerpieces of large crystal shards clustered in hand-blown crystal eggs were designed in Venice, manufactured in New York and assembled here. Versace also sent tablecloths and 1,200 charger plates to Universal City. They paid for the models’ transportation and accommodations, and a number of their employees and the New York public relations firm they contracted to produce the ball worked on it for eight months. “I will never know how much they’ve done,” Tartikoff says, “because they write their own checks. They brought in sponsors to buy 10 or 12 tables. Donatella is so generous with herself, her clothes, her feelings.”

Although she won’t reveal how much Versace spent, Donatella admits, “This is an expensive thing for the company to do, but I’m very happy to do it. Being a celebrity and famous can be upsetting sometimes, but it’s also good if you’re able to raise money for good causes.”

Fund-Raiser Puts It in Perspective

The day after she arrived in L.A., Donatella toured the UCLA research labs that Fire & Ice funds have supported. “Sometimes we think what we do every day is so important, but then you see something like that and everything is ridiculous, compared to that.”

As much as Donatella admires the clarity of diamonds, she also appreciates the wellspring of artifice from which fashion originates. “It’s all about beauty and dreams. You make people dream and you make them buy your dream. They think they can be part of a dream. What’s better than that in life? To be able to give people that?”

Electronic media are responsible for transmitting the images that will fuel countless Versace fantasies. A crew from “Dateline NBC” follows Donatella around Los Angeles. They are among the phalanx of press gathered at the opening of the recently remodeled Rodeo Drive boutique Monday evening. Four months ago the company bought back the store from its franchise holder because they want to control their shops in the most important cities in the world.

The cocktail party to launch the refurbished store is a colossal photo opportunity. Those in attendance form a kind of publicity-flavored Napoleon composed of rich layers of need and benefit: Celebrities are there, dressed in Versace, to be photographed. Santo and Donatella, freshly made up and poured into a sheer body stocking of a dress, are there to welcome them, journalists are there to record their comments about Versace. The only other guests are publicists and handlers.

Gianni Versace, who understood the power of a glamorous image and loved celebrities, would have approved. Surely that thought occurred to Donatella there, and again at the triumphant ball. But her public face was radiant. “I’m still in pain,” she says. “I’m still mourning my brother. But my pain is mine. I’m very jealous of my pain. I don’t want to share it. So I put on a smile and go on.”