Power Women, Milan-Style

Prima Donatella

At the end of a show for a Genny collection, Donatella Girombelli takes the bow. Although the line is designed by Gianni Versace, it is more closely associated with the woman whose company produces some of the world's other top labels—Byblos, Complice, Christian Lacroix ready-to-wear. After art school in Milan, Donatella met Amaldo Girombelli through business; he eventually divorced, married her, and when he died in 1980, La Signora Girombelli took over the company. Her inexperience and quick rise to power caused speculation, but as business has tripled under her direction, so has her reputation increased for being cool, tough, and serious. "I'm not the sort of person who is influenced by other people," she says. "I influence them."

Sibling Sozzanis

Chalting the moves and the achingly inimitable styles of the Sozzani sisters, the undisputed Queen Midases of Italian magazinedom, has been an absorbing Milanese pastime for over a decade. Franca, former direttore responsabile of style bibles Per Lui and Lei, swept in to head up Vogue Italia less than a year ago, and since then each mammoth issue has become something of a collector's item. Carla, once stellar chief of the Big Four (Vogue Sposa, Vogue Pelle, Vogue Bambini, and Vogue Gioiello), has also waved her seismic wand over an unsuspecting Italian Elle. But those imagining Franca and Carla blowing kisses to each other across the office hallway will have to wait—the careers of the two Botticellian sisters have yet to collide at Cond6 Nast's Piazza Castello. —C.D'S.

C.D's.