Here’s NYTimes with the report:
“I am a survivor,” the designer Donatella Versace said matter-of-factly during a recent blitz of New York, a visit that made it appear little had changed in the world of the occupationally fabulous.
Whether presiding over a benefit gala at the Whitney Museum of American Art, where she is a benefactor, or being photographed for the tabloids with a haggard Lindsay Lohan or being honored at a celebrity lunch given for her by Tina Brown, Ms. Versace maintained her signature aura of high-maintenance glamour.
But her composure, like her company’s Medusa logo, was a mask. Two days after Ms. Versace left New York to attend the Fashion Rocks concert in Brazil, Gianni Versace S.p.A., the family-held company over which she presides, announced that it would cut 26 percent of its worldwide work force, as many as 350 jobs. It projected a loss of $45 million in 2009 and no return to profitability before 2011.
It was not the first sign that Versace is suffering from the sharp rejection of luxury goods by consumers around the globe. In early October, the company announced the closing of its three Japanese stores, an abrupt departure from a once-lucrative market entered in 1981, during the glory days of the label.
“In business you cannot just dream about the economy returning, something nobody in the world is saying for sure will happen,” Gian Giacomo Ferraris, Versace’s new chief executive, said by telephone from Milan. “A responsible person has to face reality and act according to reality,” he added. “But Versace also, as a fashion company, needs to go back to being a trendsetter in creative terms.” – from NYTimes