Donatella Versace Biography

Name : Donatella Versace
Date of Birth : 2 May 1955, Reggio di Calabria, Italy
Height : 5' 5" (1.65 m)
Occupation : Fashion designer

Donatella Versace was born in the Italian city of Reggio di Calabria, the youngest of three children in her family, her father being a personal financier to the Italian aristocracy. In the mid 1970s, Donatella followed her 25-year older brother, Giovanni ('Gianni'), to pursue knitwear design in Florence, Italy. Donatella had planned to work for her brother as Public Relations, but she was more valuable to Gianni as a 'muse and critic', according to Donatella during an interview with Vogue. (... more) Through her closeness to her brother's enterprises, Donatella plunged into the fashion world. A decade later, during the 1980s, Gianni launched a perfume dedicated to her, "Blonde", and gave her her own diffusion label, "Versus", which remains a well-known Versace inner line.

A year and three days after Gianni's death in July 1998, Donatella Versace mounted her first couture show for the Versace Atelier at the Hôtel Ritz Paris. She built her runway over the hotel's swimming pool, as her brother had done every season, though this time using sheer glass. She now oversees the production of a dozen collections each year, though these days, Donatella is just as famous for her celebrity entourage and glittering parties. Regular guests include Sir Elton John, Liz Hurley, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Kate Moss. Even Prince Charles attends Donatella's parties for the famous and elite throughout Europe.

In 2008 Donatella Versace was made the honorary chairman for London's Fashion Fringe, judging upcoming designer talent.

In 2009 Donatella asked Christopher Kane to revive Versus the diffusion line originally started off by her brother, Gianni Versace in the Eighties. The pair have successfully revitalised the brand, making it a major player again on the Fashion Week schedule.

Dominique Swain Biography

Birth Name :Dominique Ariane Swain 

Date of Birth :12 August 1980, Malibu, California, USA 

Height : 5' 9" (1.75 m) 

Profession : Actress

Born in her father's Datsun on the Santa Monica freeway, Dominique Adrian Swain was born on August 12, 1980. She grew up in Malibu with her parents and four siblings, living a modest lifestyle and enduring the usual teenage humiliations of crooked teeth and catty classmates at Malibu High School. Swain excelled at learning, earning straight A's and becoming Valedictorian. Then, in her sophomore year, Swain's life took a famous turn. Swain had already officially launched her Hollywood career as a stunt double; she appeared under the ice as Macaulay Culkin's younger sister in Joseph Ruben's The Good Son (1993), then almost nabbed the role of "Claudia" in Interview with the Vampire (1994). But it was in 1997, when Swain was just fourteen, that she was chosen out of 2,500 girls to play the title role in Adrian Lyne's controversial remake of Lolita (the film couldn't pin down an American distributor and was only released in Europe). Snapping her gum and flouncing around Jeremy Irons' besotted Humbert Humbert, Swain was critically praised for adding a contemporary feel to the sensual, bratty Dolores "Lolita" Haze, and for delivering a remarkable performance opposite seasoned actors Jeremy Irons and Melanie Griffith. 

The same year Lolita was released, Swain also had a starring role in the action film Face/Off (1997) playing the daughter of John Travolta. More work followed and she starred as the lead in the coming-of-age drama called Girl (1998), which told the story of a spoiled high school student trying to make sense out of sex. Lead and starring roles continued to pour in and in the first three years of the 21st century, Swain had already built up an impressive resume with work in Happy Campers (2001), Pumpkin (2002), New Best Friend (2002) and Briar Patch (2002).