Eighteen months after she stepped down from the house her brother founded, Donatella Versace finally has her next move lined up, and it isn't where anyone expected. On September 21, Revolve Group announced a joint venture with the designer to launch a brand-new fashion and beauty business. Miss Versace will be Chief Creative Officer.
To be clear up front: this is not a Versace collab. The Versace brand now belongs to Prada Group, which bought it from Capri Holdings in 2025 for around €1.25 billion, and Prada declined to comment on the deal. What Revolve is backing is Donatella herself: her name, her instincts, and nearly three decades of turning a fashion house into a pop-culture machine.
How the deal works
The split is simple. Donatella runs the creative side: brand identity, product, collaborators and cultural positioning. Revolve brings everything else: e-commerce, tech, consumer data, operations, marketing and its huge influencer network. Revolve runs two sites, Revolve and FWRD, carries more than 1,600 brands, and made about $1.4 billion in sales last year, mostly from Millennial and Gen Z shoppers.
"This partnership gives me freedom to speak to that generation in a completely new and personal way, through beauty and fashion"
Donatella Versace
Mike Karanikolas, Revolve's co-founder and co-CEO, said the aim is to combine "Donatella's creative authority with Revolve's technology" and to "build it for the long term." Raissa Gerona, Revolve's president of brand and partnerships, added: "Donatella has an extraordinary instinct for what the next generation wants."
What we know (and what we don't)
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Beauty comes first. Fashion will follow, and the long-term plan also covers entertainment, talent, creators and community.
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Name, products and pricing are still under wraps. They're due "in the coming months."
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Launch markets: the US, Latin America, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East. Europe isn't on the list yet.
Why it matters
On paper, the pairing is odd: a 71-year-old Italian fashion icon teaming up with the retailer best known for Coachella-season influencer trips and Revolve Festival. But look closer and it actually makes sense. Revolve's model is turning online buzz into sales. Donatella, meanwhile, is one of the few designers who is famous well beyond fashion: J.Lo's jungle dress, SNL parodies, Penélope Cruz playing her in American Crime Story back in 2018. In short, few people are better at getting a brand talked about.
"Creativity should be fearless, inclusive and alive in the world"
Donatella Versace
Starting with beauty is also a smart move. It's cheaper to launch than ready-to-wear, gives the brand a way into the market at lower price points, and it's where a big personal name tends to sell best. It’s the same celebrity-driven approach that built Fenty Beauty, Rare Beauty and Rhode with Hailey Bieber, which pulled off one of the biggest celebrity beauty brand acquisitions in history. This time led by someone with real fashion credentials.
Meanwhile, the Versace house is on its own reset. Dario Vitale left after showing just one collection, and Pieter Mulier will show his first Versace collection in February 2027.
With Donatella still being the brand's chief ambassador, Versace fans will have two things to watch next year: the house under Mulier, and the woman who defined it for 28 years launching something of her own.