With her long blond hair, perma-tan and sexy clothes, Donatella Versace may not look like your average working mom.
But aside from designing more than six collections a year – and partying like the rock stars she often dresses – she’s raising two kids with her husband, Paul Beck.
To create her makeup line, she hired someone who knows her schedule: her personal makeup artist, Renato Bernardi.
“She didn’t want to have too many products to work with or mix together,” says Bernardi, who has worked with Versace since 1996.
There are 12 pieces in Versace Skincare, priced $33 for a foaming cleanser to $100 for a firming anti-wrinkle treatment.
“Ms. Versace wanted to know what was going on every step of the way,” Bernardi says. “However, she didn’t go to the lab – it came to her. It was important to her to create a line that she could use and strongly recommend.”
In true Versace fashion, last Thursday evening Donatella made her first round of recommendations to a crowd of superstars at a cocktail gathering and dinner party attended by Rupert Everett, Jennifer Lopez, Hilary Swank, and Woody Allen and Soon-Yi Previn.
Bernardi collaborated on fashion shows and advertising campaigns with Italian designers including Valentino and Giorgio Armani before Donatella asked him to come on board as creative consultant to the growing Versace Beauty line in 1996. The next year, the designer asked him to be her own makeup artist.
“I love doing her makeup and would never give it up,” Bernardi says.
Versace Skincare is available at Barneys New York. Through the end of the year, 20 percent of Versace beauty sales there will go to the Robin Hood Relief Fund, which benefits victims of the WTC tragedy.