Seeing that Dolce & Gabbana have just about cemented themselves as the one and only authority on Italianate style, this season emphasised that theory with an overtly Euro and thankfully not so trashy display of their beloved home country. With seemingly even more looks than ever before, Domenico and Stefano were able to decorate elaborately grandiose dresses literally, and by literally, we literally mean by graffiti’ing various regional Italian hotspots on a number of the show openers.
As the collection unfolded on the runway, you could almost hear the hustle and bustle, feel the rhythm of the folkish street performers and catch the scent of the fragrance of the ripe Mediterranean vegetables at a Tuscan market on a Saturday morning.
D&G are particularly good at capturing this with class and despite all the outlandish knick-knacks fixed to the models forms and the harum-scarum of stripes and florals, all tied up with matching head scarves, SS16 was a true tribute to what they are still doing best.
At the end of the show, both D&G each made comments which suggested trends are leading their collections less and less and they are doing what they do for the love of the surroundings that keep them so impassioned. While this writer is the first person to give them three cheers for this steadfast outlook, it does cast the design duo as a loose cannon on Milan’s fashion map.
Then again, it feels that Dolce & Gabbana are increasingly positioning themselves in an industry league all their own, so as long as there are still consumers who are equally as infatuated with Italian culture, I doubt they will be excommunicating the modern luxury fashion lemming that soon.
by Liam Feltham
Images courtesy of D&G