In this week’s issue of FT Weekend, on sale Saturday 9th and Sunday 10th February, Donatella Versace tells Emily Backus about her favourite home, her style and her taste in interior design. “When my brother died I was thrust into the spotlight as the creative director of the house, a position I was neither expecting nor prepared to take at the time. It was a situation made even more difficult by the fact that I was in shock and grieving,” she tells FT Weekend.

“For a few years I felt that I was really impersonating Gianni’s style. After all, he had taught me everything I knew about design… In recent years I have become more confident in my abilities and have found my own voice. I realise that Gianni worked in a time when excess was in fashion – the 1980s were all about the big statement, the dramatic entrance. Today I believe people want something a bit more understated and elegant.”

Highlights of the interview include:

•Her childhood home: “My parents always loved luxury… we lived in a family house with the kind of furniture and furnishings that you would accumulate over time.”

•Her main home: “It is quite an eclectic mix but I feel it expresses my personality. I don’t think many people would put an oriental bathroom next to a modern bedroom. People think it’s not correct.”

•Her style: “I have taken the core values of Versace design – glamour and sexiness – and interpreted them in a new way. This means less gold, fewer prints, less overt sexuality and more black and white and silver (or steel in the case of furniture) and cleaner lines.”

•Entertaining: “My kitchens… were well designed and spacious and always well stocked, so it is always possible to have a dinner party at fairly short notice. When it comes to being entertained, I have dressing rooms in which to get ready.”

•Her favourite room: “It is the living room area of the Versace palazzo in Via Gesu, Milan…. It is a room I associate with my brother because he used to spend a lot of time there.”

•Interior design: Gianni “was always passionate about decorating his won homes so perhaps it was only a matter of time before he decided to offer his vision of interiors to his customers.”

•Use of neoclassical and baroque elements: “Versace as a house has always been interested in combining the old and the new. My brother loved ornamentation and borrowed motifs from different periods in history.”

•Use of Greek motifs: “I have always been fascinated by the idea of the Medusa, a woman who is both beautiful and terrible.”

The full interview is available in February 9/10 issue of FT Weekend.

- ends -

For further information please contact:

Jo Crosby, Financial Times, T: +44 (0) 20 7873 3811, E: jo.crosby@ft.com

Sophie Grut, Financial Times, T: +44 (0) 20 7873 3119, E: sophie.grut@ft.com

About the Financial Times

The Financial Times, one of the world’s leading business newspapers, is recognised internationally for its authority, integrity and accuracy. Providing extensive news, comment and analysis, the newspaper is printed at 24 print sites across the globe, has a daily circulation of 452,448 (ABC figures, January 2008) and a readership of more than 1.3 million people worldwide. FT.com is one of the world’s leading business information websites, and the internet partner of the FT newspaper. FT.com is the definitive home for business intelligence on the web, providing an essential source of news, comment, data and analysis for the global business community. FT.com attracts 6.5 million unique users, generating 43 million page views. FT.com has 101,000 subscribers.