For Fall 2002, Dolce & Gabbana conducted a tour through their fashion heartland, pointing out everything they do best and romancing an idea Stefano Gabbana calls "rustic glamor."
For country lovers of the high-heeled-wearing kind, the design duo suggested sexy cords, beautiful handcrafted suede coats, Peruvian ponchos, chunky fur scarves and any number of fabulous outsize shoulder bags made of fringed wool and woven leather. Dolce & Gabbana's signature masculine-feminine three-piece pantsuits looked classic yet freshly relevant, with their sharp tailoring and flattering vests (an item that's shooting up the Fall fashion charts). They also showed hip-slung bootleg or low-rider baggy cords, lingerie tops and a zillion desirable accessories—rope belts, long fringed scarves, stacks of gold bangles and bracelets and delicious boots and shoes—all corralled from a huge range of countrified textures and fabrics in shades of brown and cream.
Of course, no peasant maid would ever wear a thigh-high flirty skirt with a streetwise brown corduroy jacket bristling with buckled poacher-pockets. Or pick her way through fields in pale suede boots patterned in nail-head studs. But that's the genius of this label—total devotion to the cause of gorgeousness whatever terrain fashion happens to be passing through at the time.
