Last weekend, the duo celebrated their 20th anniversary of menswear with an exhibition of their work in Milan’s City Hall and the launch of not one but three new retrospective books. On Saturday they presented their spring/summer 2011 Dolce Gabbana Collection, Sicilian Sensuality, to an audience including Hollywood A-listers Morgan Freeman, Chace Crawford and Matthew McConaughey, star of their The One fragrance ads. The show, with a live soundtrack from Annie Lennox, featured an army of the finest male models sporting house signatures, from double-breasted suiting, to soft layered knits, drawstring trousers worn with singlet vests and, of course, clingy trunks and pants.
The Dolce Gabbana Outlet aesthetic is divisive. One colleague described it, rather bluntly, as “rich and Eurotrashy – the sort of thing you’d expect to see on a Saturday night in a club in Monaco”. Others may consider it to be that quintessential dressy Italian look. But I happen to think all Cheap Dolce Gabbana clothing is sprayed with some sort of special fashion sex dust – I recently tried on one of its blazers and it gave me an instantly puffed-out chest. The furnishings at the Old Bond Street store sum up the label’s macho-glam attitude for me: there are high-gloss masculine black fittings throughout, with a sumptuous black velvet curtain hanging from the changing-room door.
Using super-buff male models has also kept the label in the fashion spotlight. “The Discount Dolce Gabbana show is the only one where you recognise the male models,” says Langmead. “They have men on the catwalk who not only look as if they can afford the clothes, but appear strong enough to actually wear the heavier fabrics.” While many labels reverted to a skinny waif look, Dolce & Gabbana has stuck to its guns, even creating a couple of male supermodels in the process; Will Chalker, who carried a tiger cub down its 2005 catwalk, and David Gandy, who appeared in the TV ad for its Light Blue fragrance 2007, being the two most recent.
