MILAN — When she began creating her Tribute collection, an ode to the work of her brother, Gianni Versace, that would become her spring women’s wear show, Donatella Versace knew what people were going to think. Not of the clothes; of the rationale behind the clothes.

She knew the rumors that have been roiling the fashion world since January. “Rumors,” she said, sitting on a dark, squashy sofa in an opulent reception room in the Versace Palazzo on Via Gesù a few days before the show, rolling eyes rimmed in dark shadow and making exaggerated quote marks with her fingers. “Oh: rumors.”

She knew people had been saying that she was going to step aside as designer and name a successor. First it was Riccardo Tisci (that was after he resigned from his job at Givenchy); then Virgil Abloh; and, as of this week, during the London shows, Kim Jones, men’s wear designer at Louis Vuitton. The front row had been abuzz with the whispers.