First presented during Spring Fashion Week in Milan, the Italian duo ravished journalists, fashion lovers, and customers alike with these dresses that seem to be straight out of the pompous dressing room of an Empress stuck between East and West. Composed like Byzantine mosaics, it’s with a palette identical to that of painter Giotto that the duo borrows some of the traits from famous icons in the cathedral Santa Maria Nuova de Monreale, built in Sicily in the 18th century. The duo’s sensual baroque style here reinterprets these religious symbols for a woman who’s never been as sumptuous as she is with Dolce & Gabbana. For Domenico Dolce, it can’t be otherwise: “The golden hour has sounded!”
All the savoir-faire of the workshop is exhibited here in a thoroughly worked texture that isn’t without evoking the magnificence of Byzantium, a veritable source of inspiration for the runway show. Embroidered in semi-precious pearls, these loose, mini, or half-length dresses bring medieval art together with contemporary proportions, creating a sumptuousness without fanfare that doesn’t drag its feet. Dazzling cocktail dresses bedecked with pearls and gold call to the light. This baroque grace signals a decision to go back to Italian basics, or rather, to the basics of Domenico’s native Sicily. A dress as sensuality and passion: a reunion of sacred and profane?
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