Donatella Versace and Revolve

Donatella Versace and Revolve officially announce a new fashion and beauty venture

Donatella Versace and Revolve are joining forces to create a new independent fashion and beauty company. Officially announced on September 21, 2026, this joint venture marks a major step in the Italian designer's post-Versace era. Donatella will lead the creative vision, while Revolve will contribute its technology, consumer insights, e-commerce capabilities, and talent network. The first strategic clue: the launch will begin with beauty. This time, it's neither a rumor of a creative reshuffle nor a simple capsule collaboration.

On September 21, 2026, Donatella Versace and REVOLVE Group officially announced the creation of an independent joint venture to develop a new business blending beauty and fashion. The choice of words is significant. The announcement does not present Donatella as a guest designer for a REVOLVE collection. It describes the construction of a new entrepreneurial universe reflecting her personal creative vision, with its own identity, its own products, and a new digital platform.

Donatella will serve as Chief Creative Officer. According to REVOLVE, she will shape the project's identity, products, collaborations, and cultural universe. REVOLVE will handle the commercial infrastructure: digital commerce, technology, consumer intelligence, operations, marketing, and community.

The equation is therefore very different from a traditional collaboration between designer and distributor. Donatella brings the image, the aesthetic language, and global renown. REVOLVE brings the machine capable of transforming this desirability into an audience, and then into sales. This is precisely what makes this project particularly interesting for understanding the evolution of luxury in 2026.

What will Donatella Versace's new brand be called?

For now, there's no official response. REVOLVE specifies that the name, the detailed creative vision, and the initial launch will be revealed in the coming months.

This lack of public identity is important to emphasize: talking about a "Donatella brand" today is convenient for identifying the project, but its final commercial name has not yet been announced.

It is also important to avoid anticipating a product architecture that does not yet exist publicly. No catalog, price list, or complete initial collection had been unveiled as of September 26, 2026.

One piece of information is confirmed, however: the initial launch will begin with beauty products. This is probably the strongest strategic signal of the entire announcement.

Beauty will be the first gateway into the Donatella universe

Why start with beauty when Donatella Versace is first and foremost one of the most recognizable figures in contemporary fashion? Because premium beauty has characteristics particularly suited to the launch of a new brand.

First, it allows a world to be quickly materialized. A color, a material, a finish, packaging or a signature scent can establish an identity even before the consumer has access to a complete wardrobe.

Beauty also possesses another strength: its frequency of interaction with the public. A beauty product can be worn daily, shown in videos, photographed, tested, and recommended. It becomes simultaneously a product, a gesture, and content.

For a project that specifically aims to bring together culture, creators, community, and commerce, this dimension is particularly fitting. However, it would be premature to say whether the first product will be a perfume, a lipstick, or a skincare product. REVOLVE hasn't specified this yet. What we do know is simpler and more certain: beauty will be the project's launch.

Why is the partnership between Donatella Versace and Revolve strategic?

At first glance, Donatella Versace and REVOLVE come from two very different worlds. On one side, a designer intimately linked to the history of an Italian luxury house founded in 1978. On the other, an American group born in 2003 and built around e-commerce, data, and digital influence. It is precisely this difference that gives meaning to the alliance. REVOLVE explains that its platform brings together millions of consumers, thousands of influencers, and more than 1,600 emerging, established, or owned brands.

The company has two main, complementary platforms: REVOLVE, positioned more towards premium and discovery content, and FWRD, geared towards luxury and international labels. The company has particularly distinguished itself through its ability to bridge the gap between content and transactions.

At REVOLVE, consumers don't necessarily discover a product after seeing a traditional advertising campaign. They might encounter it through a content creator, an event, a celebrity, or an editorial platform before making a purchase. This approach perfectly aligns with the vocabulary used in the ad: discovery, storytelling, community, and commerce.

From Versace to a personal creative vision

Perhaps the most interesting dimension of the project lies in one word: independent. For nearly three decades, Donatella Versace directed the creation of a House that she did not found but with which she was inseparable.

After Gianni Versace's death in 1997, she took over the creative responsibility for the family business and helped transform Versace into a global cultural brand.

His language became instantly recognizable: sensuality, color, dresses sculpted around the body, Hollywood glamour, music and pop culture. But creating for Versace also meant working within a heritage.

The new venture announced with REVOLVE theoretically offers a different kind of freedom. The press release explicitly mentions Donatella's personal creative vision.

This is a crucial distinction. The question is no longer simply how to perpetuate the Versace legacy. It's about discovering what Donatella wants to create when her name, personality, and sensibility can exist within a new framework.

2025: the year Donatella Versace leaves the creative directorship

To understand the scope of this announcement, we need to go back to March 13, 2025.Capri Holdings and Versace announced then that Donatella Versace would leave her position as Chief Creative Officer to become Chief Brand Ambassador, effective April 1, 2025.

This transition marks the end of nearly thirty years of creative direction. It doesn't immediately signify a break with Versace: his new role will allow him to continue representing the House and supporting its philanthropic commitments. But it undeniably opens up a new creative space.

The announcement in September 2026 now provides a partial answer to the question that accompanied this transition: what could Donatella build after Versace? She chose not to join another historic fashion house, but to participate in the creation of a new venture. This choice speaks volumes about the evolving power of major designers.

The Donatella × Revolve project is not the new Versace

The distinction must be clear, both editorially and semantically. The new company developed with REVOLVE is announced as independent. Versace, for its part, continues on its own path. On December 2, 2025, Prada Group officially finalized the acquisition of Versace from Capri Holdings. The fashion house now belongs to the Prada Group.

In 2026, this capital evolution is accompanied by a creative and strategic transformation. Luxe Daily already analyzes this shift in its report on Versace under the Prada Group era, as well as in its analysis of Pieter Mulier's new artistic direction at Versace.

Donatella's personal project therefore does not replace Versace. Two stories will now evolve in parallel: that of the Italian fashion house, now integrated into the Prada Group , and that of a designer who is beginning to build a new universe outside of its historical framework.

Donatella Versace becomes a new kind of "founder-led brand"

the contemporary luxury sector has witnessed the rise of brands directly associated with a personality. These are often referred to as founder-led brands : companies where the founder is not just a leader, but the primary source of desirability, narrative, and identification.

The model is particularly powerful in the beauty industry. Consumers aren't just buying a formula. They're buying into a world, an aesthetic, a symbolic connection with the person who represents it. The Donatella case, however, is atypical.

She is not starting from scratch. Her face, her blonde hair, her style, her discourse on confidence and her relationship to popular culture already constitute an extremely strong identity.

In other words, the future brand will have to build its commercial reputation without having to entirely create the fame of its founder. This is a considerable advantage. But it also represents a risk: the product will have to be strong enough not to depend solely on Donatella's celebrity.

A brand conceived "digital-first"

REVOLVE's press release strongly emphasizes this aspect: the new company will be built around a digital-first. This term goes beyond simply having an online store.

A digital-first brand designs its product, storytelling , customer acquisition, and customer relationships from the outset for a digital environment. This means that campaigns, video, social media, recommendations, data, and e-commerce are integrated into the same system. This approach differs from that of a traditional brick-and-mortar business that has gradually added digital elements to its historical network of stores.

Here, digital technology constitutes the initial infrastructure.

REVOLVE can leverage its knowledge of customer behavior: categories searched, content viewed, products saved, conversion trends, and purchase frequency. This consumer intelligence can help a new brand quickly understand market reactions.

In the luxury and premium sectors, this capability becomes a decisive advantage when seeking to reduce the gap between creative desire and actual demand.

The content becomes part of the product

One of the most revealing passages in the announcement concerns the desire to bring together fashion, beauty, entertainment, talent, creators, and community. This wording describes a model in which a brand no longer simply launches products; it builds a cultural environment.

Content is no longer a layer of communication added after a collection has been designed. It's becoming part of the overall consumer experience. This approach aligns perfectly with how the social media generation discovers new brands.

A product can appear behind the scenes at an event, be adopted by a celebrity, circulate in creators' content and then go viral before the general public even really knows the company that markets it.

For Donatella, whose career has been built precisely at the intersection of fashion, music, cinema and celebrities, this model has a certain cultural logic.

A story deeply connected to pop culture

To reduce Donatella Versace to clothing would be to misunderstand her influence. Since the 1990s, her world has been part of a constant dialogue with musicians, actors, models and popular culture.

This ability to transform fashion into a cultural event is precisely one of the strengths highlighted by REVOLVE. The group cites its capacity to unite an international community around values ​​such as trust, individuality, and self-expression.

The future brand will therefore probably benefit from capitalizing on this dimension rather than simply reproducing the stylistic codes of the old Versace.

This is where the main creative challenge lies. How can one be instantly recognizable as Donatella without creating a Versace imitation? The answer can only come from the product itself.

United States, Latin America, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East: where will the brand be launched?

Another important piece of information from the official press release: Europe is not among the initial launch locations announced. REVOLVE indicates that the project will initially launch in:

• UNITED STATES ;
• in Latin America ;
• in the Asia-Pacific ;
• in the Middle East.

The group adds that other markets may be considered as the company develops. For the French market, there is therefore no official date yet. This geographical area warrants attention.

It highlights markets that are particularly receptive to digital distribution models, international personalities, and brand universes centered around fashion and beauty.

It also shows that the project is not built on the traditional model of a European house launching its offering first in Milan, Paris or London.

Why is Europe's initial absence significant?

For decades, the legitimacy of a new Western luxury brand was almost automatically tied to Paris, Milan, London, or New York. Digital technology has partially disrupted this geography. A brand can now build an international audience even before it has a major physical store. In the case of Donatella and REVOLVE, the strategy seems to favor territories where the power of e-commerce, celebrity culture, and social communities can accelerate adoption.

This obviously does not mean that Europe will be permanently excluded. REVOLVE specifically states that new markets will be able to join the scheme.

But this initial mapping already provides an indication of the project's philosophy: think globally before thinking about traditional physical networks.

Fashion and beauty: a future ecosystem rather than just a collection

The press release uses the term " beauty and fashion business." Therefore, the project should be viewed as a multi-segment enterprise rather than a one-off line launch. Beauty will come first. However, fashion has been part of the scope announced from the outset.

This architecture could allow the Donatella universe to operate at several price levels and several purchase frequencies, even if no precise pricing positioning is yet official.

This is where caution is advised. Talking today about "accessible luxury," premium pricing, or a future pyramid structure encompassing perfumes, clothing, and accessories is still a matter of analysis, not a fact. The future pricing strategy will nevertheless be crucial.

Donatella has an image associated with Italian luxury, while REVOLVE operates in the premium, contemporary fashion, and, through FWRD, luxury brand distribution sectors. The future positioning will need to make these two cultures compatible.

REVOLVE offers much more than just an e-commerce site

In the original article, presenting REVOLVE as a simple distributor would have been an oversimplification. The company provides several layers of infrastructure.

First, digital commerce. Then, the technology and operations needed to transform a brand into a business capable of selling at scale. Next comes customer data. Finally, REVOLVE has a large network of talent, influencers, and content creators.

This combination explains why the company can partner with someone who already possesses creative authority but isn't necessarily looking to rebuild an entire industrial and digital infrastructure on their own. The partnership is therefore based on a clear separation of expertise: Donatella creates the universe; REVOLVE builds the machine that allows this universe to reach its audience.

Can data coexist with creation?

This is one of the major questions facing contemporary luxury. Consumer intelligence helps identify what works: categories, colors, prices, reactions, and purchasing behaviors. But creation cannot simply become a consequence of dashboards. A strong brand must sometimes offer consumers something they didn't yet know they wanted.

The challenge, therefore, lies in using data as a tool for understanding the market, not as a substitute for vision. This tension is particularly interesting with Donatella. Her reputation rests precisely on a strong and instantly recognizable aesthetic. If the project becomes too dependent on fleeting trends, it risks losing what makes its founder distinctive.

Conversely, if it completely ignores new consumer behaviors, it would be underutilizing one of the main advantages of the partnership with REVOLVE.

A textbook case for the evolution of contemporary luxury

The Donatella × REVOLVE joint venture ultimately transcends the personal journey of a single designer. It exemplifies several simultaneous market transformations. The first is the power of individual talent. An international creative personality can now envision building a brand outside of established corporations by directly partnering with a technological and commercial infrastructure. The second concerns the beauty industry. The category is increasingly becoming a platform for launching, recruiting, and building communities. The third concerns distribution. E-commerce is no longer simply an added channel for a brand; it can become the starting point of the business model.

Finally, the partnership illustrates the convergence of culture and commerce. Influencers, talent, events, and content are no longer just promotional tools; they are becoming an integral part of the brand system.

What is the difference with Versace under Prada Group?

The comparison is particularly interesting because the two projects seem to be evolving according to almost opposite logics. On the one hand, Versace is now integrated into the Prada Group, whose strategy relies on a highly structured industrial, retail , and heritage infrastructure. On the other hand, Donatella is building a new company with REVOLVE, without its own commercial heritage, designed from the outset for the digital age.

Luxe Daily has already analyzed the first move in its report on Versace under the Prada Group: the strategy of a luxury brand refocused around Atelier Versace. The site also follows the House's new creative phase with its analysis of Pieter Mulier at Versace.

This content forms a particularly relevant link with this article: it allows us to understand simultaneously the future of Versace and that of the woman who shaped its image for nearly thirty years.

What remains to be discovered

As of September 26, 2026, several key elements remain intentionally secret.

We don't know yet:

• the official name of the brand ;
• graphic identity;
• the exact date of the first launch;
• the first commercially available beauty category;
• the costs ;
• industrial partners;
• the fashion calendar;
• future presence in Europe or France;
• the potential physical distribution strategy.

These unknowns do not diminish the importance of the announcement. They simply necessitate a clear distinction between official facts and market projections. The launch can only truly be assessed once Donatella and REVOLVE unveil the first products.

Why can this launch be important in Donatella's post-Versace career?

The main issue isn't whether Donatella can attract attention. That attention already exists. The real challenge will be converting immense cultural influence into a standalone brand identity. For nearly three decades, the names Donatella and Versace have been synonymous in the collective imagination.

From 2026 onwards, this equation begins to unravel. Versace continues its story under the Prada Group. Donatella begins hers with REVOLVE. If the project finds its own visual language, credible product quality, and a sufficiently distinct proposition from Versace, it could become one of the most interesting cases of a digital-first designer brand of the decade.

If, on the other hand, he simply recycles the codes associated with his past, the comparison with Versace will be constant. Everything will therefore hinge on the first beauty offering. Because this time, Donatella Versace must not only continue the history of a fashion house. She must begin to write her own.

Also read on Luxe Daily

• Versace: news and collections to follow the evolution of the Italian fashion house since its integration into the Prada group.
• Versace under the Prada Group era: the strategy of a luxury refocused around Atelier Versace : to understand the strategic transformation of the House after its acquisition.
• Versace and Pieter Mulier: what a new artistic direction changes : analysis of Versace's new creative chapter.
• Fashion : analysis of the houses, designers, collections and new economic models of contemporary luxury.

Official sources

Primary source of the announcement

1. REVOLVE Group – Donatella Versace and REVOLVE: A New Era Begins, September 21, 2026. Official press release confirming the joint venture, Donatella's role as Chief Creative Officer, the initial launch in the beauty sector, and the first target markets. (Official source published in English.)

Official sources available in French

2. Versace France – Donatella Versace. Official archives of the House dedicated to Donatella's work, her collections, campaigns and projects.
3. Versace France – Spring-Summer 2026. Official presentation of the collection and current creative language of Versace.
4. Versace France – News and Projects. Official French news from the House, allowing us to distinguish the current development of Versace from Donatella's new independent project.

Article expanded and updated on September 26, 2026.