Gold, the Medusa head and no interest in understatement — a fashion house whose perfumes are built to be noticed.
Overview
Versace is the Milan fashion house founded by Gianni Versace in 1978. Its first fragrance followed in 1981 under the name Gianni Versace, and perfume has been part of the business ever since.
The fragrances have been made under licence by EuroItalia since 2005. The fashion house itself has belonged to the Prada Group since December 2025. The line is known today for Eros (2012), Bright Crystal (2006) and Versace Pour Homme Dylan Blue (2016).
Founding and early history
Gianni Versace was born in Reggio Calabria in 1946 and moved to Milan in 1972. He showed the first collection under his own name in Milan in March 1978, and the first boutique opened on Via della Spiga.
Fragrance came three years later. Gianni Versace was released in 1981 and reached the United States in 1982, which is why some references give the later year. Perfume Intelligence records that the bottle was designed by Gianni Versace with Alain de Mourgues.
Versace L’Homme came next: Fragrantica and Parfumo date it to 1984, while Perfume Intelligence gives 1982. The diffusion label Versus received its own fragrances from 1990, and Blue Jeans arrived in 1994.
Gianni Versace was murdered outside his Miami Beach home in 1997. His sister Donatella Versace had been named co-designer in 1994, and she took over creative direction of the house.
The wider story of designer perfume is set out in the History of Perfume.
House style
Versace fragrance is loud by design. The clothes trade on gold, baroque print and the Medusa head. The bottles carry the same vocabulary of Greek-key borders and Medusa medallions.
The compositions follow two lines. One is fresh and bright: Bright Crystal sets yuzu and pomegranate over peony and musk, and Versace Pour Homme is a citrus and neroli composition over musk and tonka bean.
The other is sweet and dense. Eros puts mint and green apple over tonka bean, Ambroxan and vanilla. The Dreamer is an earlier example, with lavender over tobacco blossom and tonka bean.
Blue is a recurring colour, from Blue Jeans to Dylan Blue, and the similar bottles are easy to confuse. I sort them out in Versace’s Blue Bottles. Donatella Versace’s own view of the subject is in Donatella Versace on Fragrance.
Key fragrances
Every Versace fragrance I track is in the Catalog.
Perfumers
Alberto Morillas is the perfumer most associated with the house. He is credited with Bright Crystal, Versace Pour Homme and Dylan Blue. Now Smell This also lists Versense (2009) and Yellow Diamond (2011) under his name.
Aurélien Guichard wrote Eros. Now Smell This records that he trained at the perfumery school of Givaudan and moved to Firmenich in 2015.
Earlier credits are thinner. Perfume Intelligence credits Nathalie Feisthauer with Blonde (1995), and the perfumers of the first fragrances are not credited. Fragrantica also lists Christine Nagel and Francis Kurkdjian among the perfumers who have worked for the house.
Ownership and business history
Until 2004 the fragrance business sat in a company called Giver Profumi. The Moodie Davitt Report recorded that the Versace Group held 75 percent of it and Roberto Martone’s ICR held the rest.
In December 2004 EuroItalia bought Giver Profumi together with a multi-year licence for Versace and Versus fragrance, skin care and make-up. The price was not disclosed, and the Moodie Davitt Report cited industry estimates of about €48 million. The same report described EuroItalia as an Italian beauty company that already held Dolce & Gabbana and Moschino.
The licence has run since 2005. In September 2021 Capri Holdings extended it by fifteen years and gave EuroItalia the Michael Kors fragrance licence at the same time.
Ownership of the fashion house changed around that licence. Wikipedia records that Blackstone bought a 20 percent stake for €210 million in February 2014. Michael Kors agreed to buy Versace in September 2018, and the house became part of the renamed Capri Holdings. Wikipedia gives the price as $2.12 billion, while FashionNetwork reports $1.8 billion.
Prada agreed in April 2025 to buy Versace from Capri for €1.25 billion and completed the purchase on 2 December 2025. A change of fragrance licensee has not been confirmed.
I chart who makes and licenses this house’s fragrances on the Fragrance License Map.
Present position
Versace is now a Prada Group house. FashionNetwork reports that Lorenzo Bertelli became its executive chairman when the purchase closed. Wikipedia records that Donatella Versace moved to the role of Chief Brand Ambassador in March 2025 and that Pieter Mulier was announced as Chief Creative Officer in February 2026.
The fragrance line is large. Fragrantica lists 87 Versace fragrances and Parfumo lists 104. The catalogue is organised around a few pillars: Eros, Dylan Blue, Bright Crystal and Versace Pour Homme. Eros Energy extended the first of them in 2024.
When the licence was extended in 2021, Capri’s chief executive described Versace fragrance as one of the largest designer luxury fragrance businesses in the world. That is a company statement, and no sales figure was given with it.
Historical assessment
I do not count Versace among the houses that changed how perfume is composed. Its strength is consistency of character: the fragrances smell the way the clothes look, and very few fashion licences manage that for four decades.
The Dreamer is the one I return to, because its tobacco and lavender idea still stands apart from the rest of the line. Eros matters for a different reason: it is the fragrance that made the house relevant to a new generation of buyers.
The weakness is repetition. The pillars have been extended many times, and the blue bottles in particular blur into one another. The open question is what Prada ownership will mean for a fragrance business that another company runs.