Domenico Dolce0:06
For me it's very strange. Twenty years ago, when I started doing this work, I never even thought I'd be doing this job, because I'm actually a graphic designer. I used to say to Stefano, 'Was it written somewhere that I had to end up here?' And people would say, 'No, that seems almost impossible.'
We're living through this anniversary, which is an extremely important milestone, that I never imagined. And we're also lucky enough to still be young enough to enjoy it. This milestone is also what makes me very nervous right now — the fact that we're doing it in a new venue. Everything happened by chance, or rather, fate decided it. We're at this cinema called Metropole, which is completely new. We have a book to present about the 20 years, a video — everything that isn't part of a classic fashion season program. So all these things, we hope to do them to the best of our ability, which creates a bit of anxiety.
Every morning we have to come to work early. We're very disciplined — everyone gets their salary on time every month. But we don't put that weight on the clothes, because clothes must be made with emotion, sensitivity, euphoria, and enthusiasm, as if they were made with love. So we don't let that pressure show. When we do a fitting for a skirt, it has to sell — we know it has to work commercially. But we feel it when we do it.
We try to work in a way that we enjoy what we do, and it's beautiful work. Thank God we deal with beauty every day — fabrics, images, models, clients, women. We're truly fortunate to work with the most beautiful things in the world.
There's a kind of mix — a bit of instinct that we have in doing things, a bit of the fun and pleasure we have in being among people. We watch young people, various social groups, in various situations — restaurants, the streets, shopping, the city, clubs — and you realize that life goes on. It doesn't wait. We live in what I call a golden prison, but we have to get out of this golden prison to understand exactly what people want.
Our success should be judged by others, and really, you should ask the people on the street. You have to go beyond the filters — beyond the journalists and buyers — because in the end, you communicate with the final customer, with the street. That's who determines your success, no one else.
It's not that there's a huge gap anymore. Young people are the ones we like, but in reality, the taste isn't that different. What might appeal to a twenty-year-old is the same thing that appeals to a fifty-five-year-old. It's no longer about age but about taste. We need to understand what the real issue is and find it in the details.
Once, you'd design two collections a season. Now you make four to six small collections a year. Everything has changed, it's a new world. At the very beginning, perhaps because I was inexperienced, we created things like lingerie underlegs and four-season confirmations in themes — things like that. Then there was a quieter period because the Japanese buyers told us they buy a lot, but even today we have strong proposals.
We've had twenty years — we've had many small peaks, but we never had a boom like that. And I remember it as if it were yesterday — we were young guys doing consulting work, and going back to 1985 to the temple where the greats showed, and seeing ourselves in the press — that's the most beautiful thing that's ever happened to me. It was like a dream. I remember arriving on February 26th — I flew in, put up our poster, and I promised my number one that tomorrow... who would have imagined we'd have our name on a poster?
We were assistants at our age at the time, but we had already accelerated. I'd already done three years of training at several very large companies. We had a small line of our own and were already doing presentations. We weren't entirely clear about the three of us yet, but we worked a lot. Obviously, they had to give us sedatives to keep us calm, but now I realize — for me it was all normal, but it wasn't normal at all.
