With new creative directors at Milan’s top brands—Giorgio Armani, Gucci, Fendi, and Marni just this season, and more change coming at Versace soon—Italian fashion is in a state of flux. But not at Dolce & Gabbana. Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana hit the 40-year mark in 2025, and they were proud to reaffirm that legacy today, opening the show with a short video of black-and-white images of their new collection that included a voiceover testifying to the power of identity. “Many brands today lose completely their identity,” said Dolce ahead of the show. “Our history is very long.”
Today’s return to their roots came after a couple of seasons of exploring contemporary modes of dress: For spring it was pj’s all day, and last fall it was the spontaneous style of their model friends off-duty: vintage tees, jeans, and biker boots, with an oversized men’s coat on top. Back in their studio several days ago, they pointed to pictures of young Marpessa Hennink and Isabella Rossellini wearing the Sicilian men’s tailoring that distinguished the upstart label back in its early years.
Four decades later, Domenico Dolce’s sartorial skills remain as sharp as ever. To renew the hourglass jackets and coats that are such a hallmark of the brand, he cut them so that the back mirrors the front, the same lapels, the same buttons marching up the spine. “It’s a big, big challenge,” he admitted, and he asked the models wearing these special pieces to pause partway down the runway and do an old-school twirl, the better to show off the impressive workmanship. The effect was particularly compelling on a man-size double-breasted blazer that gave a peekaboo of the lacy silk camisole underneath.
The collection was almost exclusively black, the colour of the week here in Milan, though they broke it up toward the end with a series of micro-print dresses made in the spirit of an iconic Helmut Newton photograph of the model Lisa Taylor from 1975. In the powerful image, Taylor reclines on a couch, a print dress slack between her legs, training her female gaze on a shirtless man who we see only from behind. “We talk all the time about our memories of pictures,” Gabbana explained.
Which brings us to Madonna, who was today’s guest of honour. Dolce & Gabbana created Madonna’s wardrobe for her 1993 “Girlie Show” tour, and she recently recorded “La Bambola,” a 1968 Patty Pravo song celebrating Italy’s influence on world culture, for a Dolce & Gabbana: The One fragrance campaign. Her presence reinforced the designers’ point—that they have remained true to themselves. With change all around and, as we’ve seen, no guarantees of success, that commitment is their greatest asset.
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