By Sarah Ball
In Gianni Versace’s hands, his eponymous fashion house went from a Milanese upstart to a $1 billion business. Today, in the hands of his sister, Donatella, it’s less than half that profitable, in part due to curtailed luxury markets. The brunt of the blame falls on the rest of the Versace family, which has splintered the label’s creative division, refused to control spending, and allowed drug and health problems to interfere with the business. Duly, the company will ax approximately one quarter of its workforce; a return to profitability, Versace’s own analysts say, won’t happen until at least 2011. From its bootstrap beginnings through its boom and beyond, here’s a history of the house.
