Handbags Info

Dolce and Gabanna

Conceptual twosome Domenico Dolce (b. 1958, near Palermo, Sicily) and Stefano Gabbana (b.1962, Milan, Italy) are celebrated for making big name entertainers come across like stars. Their sexy modes are time and again embellishing the rich and famous, such as Isabella Rossellini, Demi Moore, Nicole Kidman and Madonna. They actually produced the now celebrated "Kylie Minogue" tribute T-shirt for Madonna. They were also the designers who created the wardrobes for Madonna's Girlie Show in 1993. They also designed and developed all the costumes for Whitney Houston's 1999 tour outing.

The pair first came to know each other in Milan, Italy at the time that they were both associates for an atelier. Sharing a love of the elaborate, they found fame together in 1985, when the developers of the Milano Collezioni requested that they lend their talents to a fashion program in an effort to unveil newly discovered fashion talent. In the year following, they exhibited their earliest standalone women's daily fashion's show. Since that time, they have exhibited a line of menswear and a procession of autograph fragrances, and embarked upon shops in Hong Kong, Japan, Italy and then in London during 1999. The store in London was built by David Chipperfield, the renowned British architect. It is a testament to the designers' love of the combination of their own British eccentricity with that Mediterranean fortitude.

At first stimulated by eclectic, garage sale non-conformism, Dolce & Gabbana's intensely shaded, animal prints can be characterized as "haute hippydom" being inspired especially by the celebrated Italian silver screen chronicles. "We design as though it were a movie," states Domenico Dolce. "We first write a tale and then we begin to fashion the clothes to go with it." The two assert to be more concerned about making the best, most flattering clothes than triggering fads, allowing at one time that they would be satisfied if their only contribution to fashion history was a black brassiere.

Their trademarks involve outerwear that resembles underwear (things like corsets and bra fastenings), mobster boss pinstripe suits, lavishly printed and embroidered coats. During the meantime their fetish-meets-femaleness assemblages are continuously reinforced by powerful commercial barrages, like the La Sicilia, in black-and-white and featuring Ferdinando Scianna photographed model Marpessa. Nevertheless basically they are known for their ability to make women look, very basically, incredibly sexy. "They find their way out of any black dress, any buttoned-up blouse," says Rossellini. "The first piece of theirs that I wore was a white shirt, very virtuous, but cut to make my breasts appear as if they were bursting out of it."

Once known as the "Gilbert and George of Italian fashion", in 1996 Misters Dolce and Gabbana bequethed their fashion interests a musical spin, by recording their own single. The tune integrated the words "D&G is love" with a techno beat. More contemporary to the fashion creation competition than other long-lasting Italian mode outfits such as Armani and Versace, the duo acknowledge that luck has fortaken of its part in their extraordinary rising star. Their corporation reported income of $800 million by 1997. This alone encouraged each of the designers to announce that they intended to stop working by the age of 40 - a word they happily did not maintain.