Dolce & Gabbana's Couture Project

[Fashion_Girl22]

Dolce & Gababa Alta Moda F/W 2016.17 Naples

Dolce & Gabbana Celebrate Sophia Loren and Naples With a High, Low, and Hugely Fun Alta Moda Experience

by Sarah Mower

The enthronement of Sophia Loren took place in a street in the Quartieri Spagnoli, right in the middle of old Naples tonight. Effectively, that’s what Dolce & Gabbana arranged for Italy’s great movie diva of divas, a ceremony which backgrounded its Alta Moda collection, both literally and symbolically. “This is my place, my land. Sometimes, it is not just about the clothes,” declared Domenico Dolce, backstage before the show (if you can call the cloisters of a baroque church “backstage”). “It is inspired by Sophia, by Naples, and tradition. She grew up not far from here, and many of her movies were set here. There’s one she was in called Miseria e Nobiltà,” he continued. “Naples is still like this today, very poor on one hand, but with this incredible Baroque architecture, the Spanish influence on the other. There are all these specialist craftspeople in the little shops here, family businesses, each making something differently. This is what Stefano and I relate to. It is authentic.”

Amongst the rails hung with richly embroidered, painted, needle-pointed, and gilded clothes swung a corseted swimsuit with a white satin sash, the words Miss Eleganza sewn in gold beads. It was a reminder that Sophia Loren’s first step to fame was competing in a local beauty contest, the break that took a girl from impoverished postwar circumstances to becoming the first Italian performer to win an acting Oscar. Now 81 years old, sparkling in rose-patterned sequins, and still in charge of an impressive plunging décolletage, Miss Loren made her way to be seated on a gilded velvet throne on a grandstand built on one of Naples’s oldest thoroughfares. Above, Neapolitan families of many generations, babies to grannies, hung from apartment windows and lined every available rooftop to cheer, applaud, and call her name. A local brass band of mostly senior signori marched by in boisterous salute, and then the girls, 99 of them, finally started to pick their way down the cobbled street.

Dolce & Gabbana really do go to town with their Alta Moda. The guests were the international superrich, who clearly love to buy their elaborately decorated, feminine clothes, but it was almost certainly the locals who had a better insight into all the homages to La Loren’s movie costumes and references to high Catholicism, folk art, and food. Each look was garlanded with extraordinary collaged headresses involving flowers; satin bows; hearts; and at one point, a cake. There were balconette necklines and curvy pencil skirts; sexy dresses with swishing hems reminiscent of Loren’s “poor-girl” ’40s roles; and incredibly fitted black suits and coats made for going to mass, but worn over sensual satin slips.

The designers allowed themselves more passages of humor, surreal exaggeration, and irony than usual—something to do with immersing themselves in the heady southern Italian mix of religion and street life. A gold brocade bejeweled cape, like something from a religious festival, was topped with a towering bishop’s mitre, and one girl teetered along in her glittery heels with what looked like an entire shrine on her head. Then turned up a pouffy blue skirt circled with an entire washing line hung with appliquéd stockings and lingerie; and, bringing cheers from the balconies, a girl in a satin soccer shirt with Sophia on the front and Maradona 10 on the back.

High, low, and huge fun it was, classic Dolce & Gabbana, with a nod to the currently rising shoulder line, a “pizza”-tablecloth puffed-sleeve blouse here; a richly gilded bolero jacket there; flashes of the ’80s, back again. Which, come to think of it, brings Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana almost full circle to when they started. Somewhere in the crowd was the model Marpessa Hennink, who starred in an early advertising campaign the designers shot with her in the Naples street market. They were penniless then, but already enamored with the idea of saying something about their country. And look at them now.

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[Fashion_Girl22]

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vogue.com

 

[Fashion_Girl22]

instagram.com/stefanogabbana, modacorriere, anielafalcao1, fashiontomax, voguerunway, diecidiecinapoli, giulsmanini, pinacozzolino, evacontroeva_, vittoriobracale, colaxia, voguegermany, marchettisimone, nataliakaminska__, iamfedericaeffe, dariakorchina

 

[Fashion_Girl22]

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[Fashion_Girl22]

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[Fashion_Girl22]

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[Fashion_Girl22]

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[Street_a_Licious]

it's ostentatious but that's the whole idea, no? except for the soccer shirt, that is just bad taste. Vetement is creeping into everything.

 

[zacatecas570]

Basically the same every season.

 

[Elite13]

Amazing how they can keep continuing the same look every single season. The brand needs new blood.

 

[gossiping]

that naples football shirt is horrible, stupid idea

the best things are the over embellished dresses. that is all that they do well anymore

 

[sixtdaily]

Too much folklore kills the folklore.

 

[AnaD]

Those headpieces make my eyes bleed, and is it just me or does everything look extremely cheap? Not just tacky, but cheap as well, like all the gilt and gold leaf will come off within two wears

 

[mistress_f]

they make me embarrassed to be italian, with their trite, tourist-ready, stereotypical imagery that exploits a retrograde image of my country. also, as ugual, this is tacky and - mostly - downright ugly.

 

[Scotty]

This is the same as their RTW line, tackier and worse too in fact. I'm not sure if they've stuck by this look because of money or creativity, because they were really good at changing themes and reinventing.

 

[Littleathquakes]

it's kitsch, but it's beautiful. I kinda miss this type of grandiosity this couture season. everything is so boring ever since Galliano stopped staging those Dior shows with the wacky hair and headpieces. it's totally repetitive and they need a stat dose of imagination, though.

 

[fashionista-ta]

In my experience (not with Alta Moda though!), their stuff is well-made.

 

[maxlinden]

its Italian

 

[JaneCurtain]

They amazingly embrace the beautiful cultural legacy of Italy, although it was risky to set the catwalk in Naples, the result is gorgeous and the location definitely strengthen the experience

 

[Phuel]

Some of the more sensual, 1950s signature Dolce Vita pieces, even some of the Saints-come-to-life designs and silhouettes are really gorgeous— even heavenly surreal despite being kitschy, like a Dali painting, with the saturated colors, elaborate embroideries and embellishments. The tackier, overwrought looks that turn the wearer into a living wedding cake topper really need to be toned down. The former mentioned looks are definitely much more appealing to my eyes since they suggest more of a lifestyle than they do just fashion. And I definitely prefer this than the Fendi Haute Fourrure, which as dazzling as the workmanship clearly is, has women looking like show poodles to me.