Inspired by the exhibition, the designers conceived a collection of goddess-worthy dresses to present for the finale of their autumn/winter 2003 Techno Romantic collection, culminating in a breathtaking creation of bias-cut, crystal-embellished transparent grey chiffon, a perfect paradigm for Dolce & Gabbana’s confident eroticism and classical romance. The finale dress reappeared in a photograph by Mario Testino for Vogue’s December issue, with model Elise Crombez posed poetically, as if an Aphrodite of some ancient frieze.
Elise Crombez becomes a heroine of romance for Vogue’s ‘When Midnight Strikes’ story photographed by Mario Testino in a handmade silk-chiffon fishtail gown from autumn/winter 2003 with darts of lace and an overlaid chainmail of Swarovski crystal.
Overleaf Swarovski crystals appeared again in Dolce & Gabbana’s spring/ summer 2004 collection, in a glittering striped flapper dress, captured in motion for Vogue by Richard Bush.
The love for Dolce’s birthplace was reiterated with the launch of the perfume Sicily in late 2003. Monica Bellucci returned as its promotional star, described by Gabbana as ‘passionate, dramatic, quintessentially Italian’. The campaign reinforced the Italian soul of the company while the mainline collections continued to explore diverse inspirations. The spring/summer 2004 collection was a case in point, a time-travelling show that featured myriad historical silhouettes from Twenties flappers, Sixties go-go girls and Thirties screen sirens all the way up to a thoroughly modern sex symbol in a gravity-defying cutout swimsuit. Flowing through the collection and uniting it was a breeze of psychedelic chiffon designs described by Vogue’s Hamish Bowles as a ‘print-on-print delirium’, shown off to great effect by model Daria Werbowy in a multi-tiered flirty flower-girl look photographed by Tesh for Vogue.
‘A dreamlike Sicily, far away, full of symbols and suggestion, which are hidden and not given.’
DOMENICO DOLCE
For autumn/winter 2004 the pair paid tribute to legendary photographer Helmut Newton, who had died just weeks before the show. Dolce & Gabbana had first worked with Newton for their first men’s fragrance campaign and Gabbana described an evident affinity with Newton’s ‘unique world of sleek, sexy, powerful women’. For these women, Dolce & Gabbana went back to their greatest hits, making them sharp and seductive, from the humble grey cardigan (buttoned just so) to the more overt leopard print and reworked masculine tailoring, which paid perfect homage to Newton’s iconic image of Yves Saint Laurent’s Le Smoking tuxedo. A second and definitive paean to Saint Laurent and the photographers who helped make icons of his work began with a safari Dolce and Gabbana had taken and then had thought about in relation to Saint Laurent’s definitive 1967 Safari collection. The moodboard for the spring 2005 Africa collection was strewn with Vogue images: ‘Avedon for the beauty, and Penn for Africa’, according to Gabbana, who had poignantly received news of Avedon’s death as the collection – in sheets of snakeskin spliced with lingerie lace – was beginning to take shape.
Daria Werbowy photographed by Tesh wearing a tiered dress of psychedelic silk-chiffon layers. The riot of colour continues with floral tights and hot pink wedge sandals, all taken from the aptly named Flower Power collection of spring/ summer 2004.
Overleaf The joyful theatricality of Dolce & Gabbana’s designs have made them a perfect fit for stars of the silver screen, on and off the red carpet. Sandra Bullock appears statuesque in leopard-print fishtail chiffon (left) photographed by Mario Testino in 1996. Sienna Miller dazzles in a tulle dress awash with crystal (right) for Nick Knight’s December 2007 Vogue cover.
Dolce & Gabbana – and Domenico and Stefano – had travelled far from their origins to the status of superstars in command of a billion-dollar brand, and their original embattled Magnani-like muse had become a bona fide La Dolce Vita diva. Although their inspirations ranged widely, as fashion critic Tim Blanks explained: ‘What unifies and makes such a success of all these disparate statements [is] unabashed exuberance, with tongue placed firmly in cheek’. By the middle of the 2000s, the designers themselves had enjoyed a remarkably successful personal and professional partnership lasting longer than the average marriage. As they approached the twentieth anniversary of their house, they were to prove that there would be further evolutions of Dolce & Gabbana the brand, and new passions for Dolce and Gabbana the men.
