Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana may not have been the earliest adopters of new technology, but they're using the not insignificant resources at their disposal to become leaders now. Before the show, guests at the Metropol were invited to log on to the company's Web site and leave comments. Those comments were then streamed live on screens above the runway that were playing footage from backstage, the front row, and outside the theater. It wasn't a bad way to pass the time before the clothes hit the catwalk.
For Fall the designers returned to a favorite theme, one that happens to be getting a lot of action in Milan this week: the masculine-feminine mix. Arizona Muse was the first model out, wearing a double-breasted black jacquard jacket, matching trousers cropped right below the knee, a porkpie hat, and oxfords. The hair team even gave her sideburns. This wasn't the molto sexy, cut-to-fit tailoring of a year ago, though. Madonna circa "Open Your Heart" is more like it.
Next up was one of the duo's signature long-sleeved sheaths, stitched up in bands of lace and a miniature star print. The show progressed this way, alternating between one boy look, one girl. On the "fellas": crisp shirts, low-slung pants, boxy vests, bright sequined evening jackets, and fur coats inset with stars. And for the gals: more of those sheaths, plus corset dresses and billowy floor-length numbers in bigger star patterns, lace motifs, and musical-note prints.
For the finale, as has become the custom here, the models emerged en masse, but by now the "boys" had doffed their jackets to reveal their matching patent suspenders and white collared shirts. The designers' tailoring skills are as sharp as ever and no one could accuse them of losing their touch with a sexy dress, but in the end you didn't feel transported anywhere they haven't taken you before. You wanted the duo to apply to the clothes more of the thinking outside the box that they have been doing on the latest technological developments.
