Milan Fashion Week – Dolce & Gabbana

by Eléonore · September 28, 2020

Link to digital show : https://www.instagram.com/dolcegabbana/

Dolce & Gabbana went out with a bang on day one of Milan Fashion Week. While the first designers up on the catwalk all seemed to be vying for the title of least fussy collection, D&G remained faithful to its convictions; namely, more is better, better is more and Sicily is home. Far from the close-fitting garments Fendi, Pucci or Max Mara stretched over agile bodies playing with vaporous fabrics cut in elastane, as light as day or as dark as at night, D&G’s catwalk was an outright explosion of colours, patterns and textures. The ” Patchwork di Sicilia” themed extravaganza transformed Metropol, D&G’s longtime show venue, into a bright Sicilian mirror ball. The only reason one was able to distinguish the models from the runaway decor was because the clothes were, and it is possible, even more variegated than their backdrop which acted as an enhancing camouflage.

98 looks in total ran down the catwalk. In a video accompanying the physical show and the digital broadcast, Dolce explained “Given our long experience being inspired by Sicily, we wanted to tell of all that you can find on an island like this, the different cultures that dominated, from the Spanish to the Arabs, the Normans.”. Gabbana added “We’ve treasured everything that they have brought to us. And we put it all together.” And so they did. The collection is an endless patchwork of Dolce & Gabbana’s sartorial tropes, an ode to Sicily indeed, but an ode to the house’s own history as well. In the same video recording, Dolce and Gabbana memorialised a 1993 show in which they used similar patchworking techniques. Instead of lazily reshuffling its inspirations and producing a merely anachronistic show, the duo rejuvenated it to adapt to contemporary issues as well as their evolving aesthetic. For instance, rather than relaunching production from scratch for this homage collection, the designers built the tribute with unused fabrics from previous collections, a legitimate and clever choice which further anchors their visual identity. Fawn and floral prints, mosaic, citrus and checked patterns, metallic textures, brocades, all is there. The materiality of the sustainable sourced original D&G fabrics used in the show underscores with beauty Dolce & Gabbana’s history within the larger Sicilian narrative.