Co-Founder & Creative Director, Dolce & Gabbana S.r.l.
"BILLION DOLLAR DRAMA QUEENS" - DOLCE & GABBANA - ITALIAN FASHION
EDITED BY NICHOLAS CAIRNS
WRITTEN BY JOSHUA CROASDALE & PAUL G ROBERTS
NARRATED BY PAUL G ROBERTS
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Arguably two of the most iconic figures in fashion, Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana have been celebrating the glamour and culture of Italy through clothes since the ‘80s. Often thematic and tongue-in-cheek, their collections transcend trends and are defined by opulent embellishments, retro femininity and vibrant prints.
Dol...
About Stefano Gabbana
In a 2020 documentary, Stefano Gabbana discussed the relationship between fashion and celebrity, stating that "the most important thing is when we have a true relation" with a celebrity, distinguishing between contractual work and a personal friendship. He also commented on the brand's support for Melania Trump in 2017, which led to a social media boycott, and noted that Dolce & Gabbana responded with a campaign titled "boycott dolce gabbana" featuring white t-shirts and hashtags. Gabbana reflected on the brand's philosophy, saying "we love fashion and the people love the fashion" and that "the designer work for the customer." He described the essence of the brand as "ultraviolet and the sense of family," adding that through their clothes and campaigns, "you can feel food, you can feel art, love... you can feel the italian typical sense of life."
Transcript (33 segments)
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Narrator0:00
Fashion Industry Broadcast and Style Planet TV are proud to bring you their new Netflix original series, The Girl's Guide to the World of Designer Fashion. This new six-part series explores the seductive world of designer fashion.
Italian fashion. Arguably two of the most iconic figures in fashion, Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana have been celebrating the glamour and culture of Italy through clothes since the 1980s. Often thematic and tongue-in-cheek, their collections transcend trends and are defined by opulent embellishments, retro femininity, and vibrant prints.
Dolce & Gabbana, or colloquially D&G, has permeated its identity through an excessive and bold aesthetic. The elaborate and expansive brand has now amassed a large reach over 30 years of its existence, having found a strong identity in its years of history. Being luxurious yet unconventional, this sentiment can still ring true today in the second decade of the 21st century.
Founded by Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana in the 1980s, the Dolce & Gabbana joint venture was an unforeseen gold mine for the pair. Each would become industry icons and influential fashion designers for many decades on end. Dolce & Gabbana is a two-way venture, with each co-founder of the brand upholding their own intriguing and illuminating history.
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Stefano Gabbana4:56
It's incredible. Making the clothes for me is the dream. When you start to think about the clothes and you have them in your mind... I love just the sketch—not precise. You have to imagine the clothes, the fabric coming back. You know, there is a strange thing, a strange magic moment between Domenico and me.
When we talk—we talk a lot about fashion. We sketch, but we talk. In the beginning, it's about the idea. Then you have the sketch, precise rendering, and at the same moment we have the imagination about what we're talking about. After that, with the sketch not precise, like this—an emotional sketch.
The starting point is the same all the time because we love Italy, we love the Italian style, we love the femininity, we love the shape. And we love the masculinity too, because we love the two different... We try with this job to make the woman more beautiful.
It was in '79 or '80, I don't remember, and I'm looking for a job. Because I'm not a fashion designer—I didn't go to fashion school. My profession was graphic design. And I love fashion, so I asked friends if they knew somebody to introduce me in some place to do fashion. They gave me the number of this Italian designer, Giorgio Garzena, and I called him. The designer was not in the office, and the assistant said, 'If Domenico will pick up the telephone, you need to speak with the designer. I'm just an assistant.' So I said, 'Can I meet you before, because I would love to introduce a designer?' And then I met him in a club in Milan.
We worked together for one year and a half there, and I went to the army. When I came back, we started to work together—and we started the love affair too. In the beginning with the job, we had different clients. We were like two different freelancers, because he worked more in one area and I worked more in another. But after, the work grew and grew, and we decided to work hard together with some company.
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Narrator7:30
After Dolce & Gabbana, they realized that they possessed a love for fashion and also for one another. And whilst they met in 1980, 1982 saw the beginning of the two's partnership, and ultimately the building blocks were laid for Dolce & Gabbana's future.
After a failed chance at landing Milan Fashion Week of 1984, 1985 had better prospects, and it saw Dolce & Gabbana's debut to the world. Wealthy financiers and investors had backed their line and ultimately allowed them to gain exposure, although they were working in a minuscule studio situation. Their debut launched to much critical success. In July, Dolce & Gabbana launched their first collection of women's wear in 1986. It was titled 'Real Women.' The collection was the first of many Italian cultural references, plucked and reformatted to create a modern fantasy ideal.
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Stefano Gabbana8:42
All these stories start when you are a child, and your fantasy improves with you for the rest of your life. You know, dream—everything starts from the dream. You dream when young, your dreaming changes during your life, but everybody follows the love. So I love Sicily, I love Italy, I love fantasy. You know, I take myself wherever I want to go.
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Narrator9:14
'Real Women' was a recollection of Italian heritage, cinema, and actual women's aspirations. Henceforth, Dolce & Gabbana's fashion presence and fame exploded.
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Stefano Gabbana9:26
We love fashion and the people love the fashion. The designer works for the customer, don't work just for the magazine, for yourself. If you love fashion, you give to the fashion. What's the importance of the fairy tale? All the people want to dream—the dream in fashion, the dream in life, in the job. Without dream, I feel you don't wake up.
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Narrator9:54
Always woven into collections in their process were historical paths, formed not only by their own classic Italian journey from south to north, but two sources of costuming: poverty and Italian ancient and modern history. The filmic style of Rossellini asserted Sicilian passion for certain works of art. Sophia Loren additionally gave way for their brand image to grow into an erotic, dominant, and aggressive art form with feminine overtones.
In 1993, a testament to Dolce & Gabbana's newfound fame arrived in the form of pop sensation Madonna noticing them.
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Stefano Gabbana11:01
In New York, on 17th Street and Seventh Avenue, between Seventh and Eighth—there was an Italian restaurant, I don't remember the name. She arrived dressed like a man, with a hat. Because she was working on the movie Dick Tracy. She arrived so beautiful and totally wet. My God—Madonna! Because for us, she was the first, the biggest icon. We're already more or less the same age, so we started with her occasionally.
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Interviewer11:43
And then you became great friends?
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Stefano Gabbana11:45
Yes, yes, of course. First of all, she did a lot of interviews. Like, you could ask, 'What do you love? What do you like?' And then, 'Okay, I love you.'
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Narrator12:03
We love Madonna because Madonna's style—you recognize all the time, Madonna. Because she changed, but didn't change. She preserved her style, and you recognize in the world Madonna's style. We started with Madonna and we developed with Whitney Houston, Tina Turner, and many, many—Kylie Minogue, Ben Affleck, men, women, pop stars, movie stars.
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Stefano Gabbana12:30
Many, many things. But for us, the most important thing is when we have a true relation—not a friendship. You know, it's different. When you have a contract, for example, we work with celebrities for a job, like to do makeup and fragrances. This is a different job. The rest is different. It's much better when you spend the weekend with Kylie Minogue, maybe you go out for dinner. She knows us much better and we know better from her. When she has something, we know—the taste is very different. It's not a contract; it's a relationship.
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Narrator14:09
D&G's general aesthetic, in the form of its campaigns, was ultimately cultivated within this period of time. Beyond a penchant for enhancing femininity, a newfound masculine style was adopted by the duo in 1994. Sapphic Chic was a masculine way in which women could exemplify a new look, encompassing girdles, corsets. D&G had revealed an even greater ability of theirs in experimenting with progressive collections and negating minimalism.
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Stefano Gabbana14:37
So the idea is to give the customer, the audience, a dream. The dress helps you to be more beautiful. You feel better, to see yourself in the mirror much better, to hear friends say 'Wow, you look good today.' It's a good help for your brain, for yourself. We respect the woman because we love women—very feminine and sexy. At the same time, it's for men. This is the tradition of the tailor—it's when you cut the clothes. It's very important to respect the body.
And if you help with a nice balance, with a nice point—all the characteristics about the feminine body and the masculine body—this is the very important internal cut. And we love working with the Italian tailor. A nice tailor helps make your shape much better. If you have one shoulder up, one down—it's normal—you make the jacket weight the way the woman wants: more narrow at the chest, a little bit more big in proportion. This is very important, and this way the shape of the body comes back much more beautiful—for men, for women.
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Narrator16:26
The early 2000s would be epitomized by further fame and expansion for their business. And although being romantically involved for such a long period of time, the early 2000s granted Dolce & Gabbana the strength and independence to separate romantically while continuing to work together professionally. To this day, branding has been a pivotal element of Dolce & Gabbana's total brand identity, having established themselves as a luxurious, internationally recognizable house. D&G's mass merchandising and expansive product range is not their only key to success. Imperatively, the duo has maintained an advertising medium and style that suits the context of the luxurious house.
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Stefano Gabbana17:10
We understand now with maturity—the maturity of what people want from us: the essence of ultraviolet, the sense of family, the sense of Italian living. Because in a picture, by clothes, by campaign, you can feel food, you can feel art, you can feel love, you can feel family, you can feel the typical Italian sense of life. We take care of this, we love this, we are like this.
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Narrator17:48
Although ultimate pricing strategies in value-based market systems work in a business standpoint, the public relations side of Dolce & Gabbana has certainly had its share of challenges over the last few years. Having banned several publications of magazines and newspapers from their runways—supposedly D&G made these decisions due to bad reviews or an alleged lack of visibility for the brand within the publications. Dolce & Gabbana continued to ban Vogue, The New York Times, and other journalists who they felt were clearly not visible representatives of their clothes in their publications. Fighting with the media is sometimes a dangerous pursuit.
Dolce & Gabbana, a luxury fashion brand which is no stranger to controversy and the ongoing media outrage and the often-seen PR misstep. And in that theme, let's count backwards the most recent PR calamity and what happened following the release of a promotional campaign to herald the 2018 arrival of their big Shanghai runway show. And again, it was Stefano who put his designer foot right in it.
And Stefano Gabbana's comments that followed were even more incendiary. After receiving an initial wave of backlash for these videos, Stefano happened to share his thoughts over Instagram, in which he said the following. These messages were shared to Instagram account Diet Prada, who then reposted them on their account. And it's fair to say D&G was cancelled. Not only cancelled—it was a disaster, a monumental disaster. A monumental disaster the likes of which there is no telling in the history of fashion. Many Chinese celebrities and influencers called for a boycott on their social media channels and, as well, not attending the fashion show altogether. Chinese online shopping sites pulled D&G fashion and fragrances from their platforms completely.
Then it was Dolce & Gabbana drawing criticism on same-sex parenting and in vitro fertilization parenting, from an interview Dolce & Gabbana did in 2015 with an Italian magazine. 'You are born and you have a father and a mother. At least it should be like that. We oppose gay adoptions.'
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Interviewer23:20
I didn't say anything other than I would be boycotting the products. I just found it offensive to say that any child was synthetic. Their own personal beliefs about family are their own beliefs, and I respect them. Although I find it very sad that two gay men would feel like that. But in the end, life is too short not to have an olive branch, and in the end, an olive branch will be extended.
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Narrator23:49
And then, who would be the perfect choice for D&G's support in 2017? None other than Donald Trump's partner, Melania. Not only choosing to dress Melania in 2017 for public and overseas appearances, Stefano Gabbana became vocal in their support for Melania, even calling her a #dgwoman on their Instagram. In response to the resulting social media boycott, D&G launched a fashion campaign titled 'Boycott Dolce & Gabbana,' featuring white T-shirts and hashtags with large love-hearts. Stefano Gabbana wrote in the caption: 'Thank you, haters. Remember, #boycottdolcegabbana please.'
This recent Shanghai disaster, amongst all the others, seems to have subsided at the moment, but it still serves to be a vivid reminder that his loose late-night social posts still carry grave consequences. But despite the controversy, D&G serves as a great example of an explosion of Italian ready-to-wear that has been carried forward around the world to this very day. As role models, Dolce & Gabbana continue to produce quality clothes, amazing advertising campaigns, and collections to this day. Dolce & Gabbana have created a legitimate, global, and distinguished brand, available in over 3,000 retail outlets worldwide. Their dominance, power, and legacy is unequivocal. The social stature excludes no consumer and aims to make any individual sexy as well as unique.