Enola Gay-era, Victory Girl style pin-up girls—all pneumatic curve and pout—were patched into the opening section of reimagined explorer wear meets Pacific theater khakis or reproduced on some of the many, many silk print camp collar shirts here. The come-hither messages written above them included “Looking Forward,” “Chill & Love,” “Only Good Vibes,” and “Choose Me.” Over the Metropol theater’s pumping sound system an extended remix of Takagi & Ketra’s Jambo saw OMI repeat the lyric “we can do what we want, we can do what we want,” over and over.
This season Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana wanted to mix a moreish menswear cocktail that packed as much potent tropical punch as the most OTT tiki bar you can barely remember remembering the morning after. As Stefano Gabbana said pre-show, “the most important thing today is this tropical mood, seen through our Sicilian eyes. What we’ve done is to take elements from the ’40s and ’50s, and Elvis, then a little from the ’80’s—Spandau Ballet—and something from the ’90s too. Then we add references from our own archive and shake it all up to maybe make something new.”
The resurrection of Dolce & Gabbana archival pieces included a loose armed, high-waisted, two top-cut pocketed leather jacket from 1991 (look 57) that came in a direct reproduction of the original and variations painted with those quivering pin-ups. There was also a seriously Sicilian middle section of tight, tight knit tees and shirts plus some loose perforated knit pieces that featured tropical patchwork. These were played against house-standard caps and leather shoes that boasted more embellishments than a presidential tweet. There were also plenty of attractive pajamas, dressing gowns, and pareos featuring southern Italian ceramic prints, and baroquely brocaded pinstripe topcoats and jackets.
This was all core house fare. Just as in recent years climate change has allowed Sicilian farmers to begin the cultivation of paw-paw, finger limes, mango, avocado, and other tropical fruit, here Dolce & Gabbana broadened the scope of its decorative cultivation to introduce a riotous Macedonia (that’s Italian for fruit salad) of non-native fare. Watermelon, bananas, pineapple, and more were slung from succulent tropical leaves in a very lingering exploration of extravagant equatorial graphics: Club Tropicana meets Paradise, Hawaiian Style.
Leopard print—usually here a reference first and foremost to Lampedusa’s novel, though always used to the utmost for its animalistically sensual implication—was today more literally jungle-sourced and placed against tiger stripe both as runway pattern and on more silk pieces, sometimes cut against the fruit and foliage prints. Leopard also featured on a semi-sheer, super-volumized duster trench—that twist of the ’80s—which was also presented in khaki and black that came cut in a super-light micro ripstop and a layered tropical print organza.
This was a collection packed full of mashed up masculine stereotype from eras now seen as hopelessly pre-woke (which they were) but that also—in the case of those pin-ups, or the wahinis in Elvis Hawaii movies—offered a gentler variety of mass-culture gender objectification than that abroad today. The print of a sports roadster on silk shirts, shorts, swimming briefs, and suits as well as the lace sports uniforms—golf, soccer, rugby, boxing and baseball—were similarly ironically undercut ‘man’s man’ costume options for fantasy island days and nights.
