In February 2005, an interview in the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera revealed that Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana were no longer involved in a romantic relationship. Asserting that Dolce & Gabbana was to continue with both at the creative helm, Dolce assured: ‘On a professional level, we are still together. We work together wonderfully well, we have a very strong understanding. What happens in the past is still there, it continues and will continue forever.’ In actual fact the couple had separated a few years before, with only family and a number of close friends made aware in a bid to protect both the pair’s privacy and the image of the fashion house.
A mysterious scene of classic Vogue storytelling features model Rie Rasmussen as a modern Cinderella in Dolce & Gabbana’s apple green chiffon and lace for photographer Norbert Schoerner on location in Russia in 2005.
Inevitably, for two designers so inextricably tied to their brand (and who had once quipped at being asked if they were equal partners, ‘today, yes. One of us may get tired and then we’ll sell the “&”.’), intense speculation followed the output of subsequent collections, initially for signs of whether the label could survive the seemingly seismic shift. The news also brought renewed interest in the two very distinct roles the designers held as well as their two opposite but complementary personalities.
Dolce & Gabbana’s corporate mission statement explains in its first chapter, ‘the group’s strength is based on the complementarity between the designers’. Stefano Gabbana told Vogue in 2010, ‘really it is a strange alchemy. We were the first designer duo in 1984, and our relationship is strange, as we were lovers and we are not any more. It’s more like family now, like brothers.’ Though unlike brothers, for Dolce and Gabbana there is seemingly no sense of competition felt by either; each other’s distinct strengths are encouraged and nurtured to powerful effect. Disagreement and discussion, however, form an essential part of the creative process. ‘He has one taste, I have another. He tries to convince me and I try to convince him – we fight about silly things and very important things’, Gabbana told Vogue, ‘We have different perspectives. He’s a tailor and gets upset about jackets, details, shoulder proportions. I’m more flamboyant, more instinctive.’
The choosing of fabrics often features early in Dolce & Gabbana’s approach and is an aspect both designers participate in collectively and equally. The design process from there on is divided quite cleanly between the two, with Dolce the architect of the silhouette through tailoring and Gabbana involved in the more flou, softer, aspects of dressmaking, and the look and styling of an outfit as it comes together. ‘Domenico is more Yves Saint Laurent, while I’m more Fiorucci’, Gabbana explained to The Guardian in 2000, characterising himself as the modernising stylist to Dolce’s more old-world couturier. As John Seabrook posited of Gabbana in a New Yorker profile of the pair in September 2005, ‘he is the eyes for Dolce’s hands’. Other areas require one designer to take greater responsibility over the other. The menswear for example, with its reliance on tailoring and reference to Sicilian workwear, is overseen predominantly by Dolce, whereas the youthful whimsicality of D&G arose more directly from the party-loving Gabbana, the self-confessed night owl of the two.
Model Malgosia Bela in Dolce & Gabbana’s soft frills and glittery layers: a raspberry-coloured ruffled pencil skirt and pale pink silk blouse with matching collar from autumn/winter 2009’s Surrealism collection. Photograph by Josh Olins.
Overleaf Showcasing the finely tuned androgyny perfected through Dolce tailoring, Tim Gutt photographs model Siri Tollerød in 2010 posing as a matador, wearing a cropped wool jacket with satin shirt and cigarillo-slim wool trousers.
Where backstage at a fashion show and in interviews Dolce and Gabbana will largely speak as a united front, often finishing one another’s sentences, Gabbana’s more open and extroverted nature lends him more willingly to the vast public and media relations aspect expected of today’s high-profile designers. His enjoyment has even led to a small number of acting and presenting roles in various productions for Italian television over the years. When top fashion editors come to view a collection just ahead of its presentation, it is quite likely that Gabbana will field questions whilst Dolce perfects the hem of a trouser or the slope of a shoulder. As for the business of running Dolce & Gabbana S.p.A, Gabbana confides that it is Dolce who takes a keener interest though Dolce vouches for Gabbana’s innate ability to pick out a bestseller from any collection.
‘We look at the same things with two different points of view – but we arrive at the same place.’
DOMENICO DOLCE
