There were mothers, daughters, sisters, brothers, boyfriends, girlfriends, toddlers, and babes-in-arms; a tribe of international millennials, members of European royal families, and so many generations of music, acting, and celebrity dynasties that a seventeen-page identification document was distributed to the press before the show. Well, you know it already. Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana just pulled off what must rank as fashion’s biggest audience–participation coup ever: a show involving over 140 people of many shapes, ethnicities, and ages—each of them dressed to the nines in clothes they had picked out and accessorized themselves over days and nights of fittings. “The character of people is the important thing to us,” declared Stefano Gabbana. “We’ve had an attraction to this from the very beginning—our first show in the mid-1980s was on real people. The message is: You need to accept yourself as you are. That’s it!”
It’s plain that no designer could marshal this kind of immensely enjoyed production simply by applying a cold corporate strategy. The designers are indeed clever businessmen. But there’s a sense that this show was only possible because it grew naturally out of the human relationships they’ve forged while hosting their Alta Moda summer trips around Italy over the last few years. They delight in displaying Italian sociability—the food, fun, the dancing, the eternal respect for the Mama—almost as much as they do the clothes. Crucial to this is Domenico Dolce’s skill and delight in cutting and altering clothes for each person to make them feel fantastic. All these factors—the relationships and the memories—conspire to make couture customers fantastically relaxed about buying Dolce & Gabbana clothing. Added to that, Stefano Gabbana’s instinct for social media has fueled the youth-connectedness. Millennials have been walking their ready-to-wear runways for a while.
In terms of clothes, there is something in the Dolce & Gabbana repertoire in which almost everyone can feel at home. That is a glorious achievement—something deeper and more enduring than any seasonal novelty.
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