When Donatella Versace took over the house of Versace in the aftermath of her brother Gianni’s murder, most observers privately assumed that her reign would be no more than a postscript. The bottle-blond younger sister, with no formal training and a drug addiction that was the fashion industry’s worst kept secret, was seen as a sentimental appointment by a shell-shocked family.

She proved everyone wrong. Versace is now defined as much by Donatella as by Gianni. She steps down from designing after 27 years as an icon in her own right, one of the most successful female designers in modern fashion history. Sober for 20 years, she has steered Versace to become a global household name, valued at $2bn (£1.6bn) when it was sold to Capri Holdings six and a half years ago.

Versace found her voice as a designer and as a champion of LGBTQ+ rights. She was praised for taking a stand against Italy’s anti-gay policies after saying in a speech in 2023: “Our government is trying to take away people’s rights to live as they wish.”

She looked destined to be consigned to the fashion history books with the untimely death of Gianni Versace. But her talent and determination have helped the brand thrive as a living force that still has the power to set trends, and made it potent and desirable to a generation of consumers who have only ever known her as its designer. Gianni recognised and championed her instincts – the safety pin as a Versace motif was an idea she had brought to his atelier – and her fluency with the codes of the house fuelled a growing self-confidence.

With an appetite for pop culture, many of Versace’s defining moments, from Jennifer Lopez in a jungle-green dress slashed to the navel in 2019 to a collection co-designed with Dua Lipa in 2023, have happened under her watch. She has been a hands-on presence in the design studio. “Versace is what it is today because of Donatella Versace,” said Emmanuel Gintzburger, the brand’s chief executive, when the succession plan was announced.

In private, she is kind and generous, funny and self-aware. When a journalist enquired how old her adored jack russell was during an interview in 2016, she replied: “Audrey is eight – but can you write six?” Her cartoonish image – shellacked walnut skin, platinum hair, petite frame jacked up on spike heels – belies a lack of ego unusual in a star designer.

She has always seen herself as the custodian queen of Versace, with a responsibility to keep her brother’s spirit alive. That she is handing her job title to Dario Vitale, a well-respected designer and image maker who has played a major role in the success of Miu Miu, one of the hottest brands in the world, demonstrates her desire to champion the Versace name, not just her own. “I am excited to see Versace through new eyes,” she said in a statement.

Donatella will remain a Versace figurehead as chief brand ambassador. She inspires fierce loyalty in her glamorous circle, and will continue to leverage the A-list names she has on speed dial. In 2017, when she reunited Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington and Claudia Schiffer on her runway, she revealed that the moment in 1991 when the supermodels lip-synced to Freedom in a Versace show, re-enacting their roles in the video to George Michael’s song, was something she had suggested to her brother. “The combination of fashion and personality was magic,” she recalled of that show. A very Donatella kind of magic.