The most recent advance of the Dolce & Gabbana empire began with what appeared to many as a retreat. In September 2011, immediately after the showing of the spring/summer 2012 D&G show, the designers disclosed it would be the last ever for the 17-year-old, $5300-million-turnover second line, one making up over 40% of the firm’s wholesale revenues. D&G’s 68 standalone stores were to be incorporated into the Dolce & Gabbana network and the famous D&G logo would remain, but those letters no longer represented a brand of their own. Many retailers – especially those that only offered the second brand – were left scratching their heads: why on earth would the designers (who had reassumed control of D&G from its licensee in 2007) ever consider closing such a money-spinner?

Just ahead of her Oscar win the following February, Jennifer Lawrence appears on the cover of the November issue of Vogue in a lace dress over a satin body taken from Dolce & Gabbana’s autumn/ winter 2012 collection, the first since the closure of the D&G line. Photograph by Alasdair McLellan.

Dolce & Gabbana said in a statement: ‘To us, it’s going back to when we began our adventure; full of ideas. We have a lot of new projects to start in the same way as many years ago when D&G was born. This is our new reality and we are extremely happy about it.’ Backstage, after that final show, the designers seemed liberated by their decision. Gabbana said: ‘In the future we want to work to one style … and it’s time to sketch just one collection because when we die we would love to leave one label recognisable to the world’. Dolce added: ‘We don’t want to be the richest men in the cemetery’. In September 2011, a new fine jewellery line was launched with a collection incorporating antique and religious charms, and it was an affirmation of Dolce & Gabbana’s commitment to craftsmanship and tradition.

By early 2012, in total secrecy, a new collection was being worked on, one that would evolve Dolce & Gabbana as a fashion house in its most complete sense, fulfilling the designers’ longest-held dream and one that now had a name: Alta Moda, the Italian translation of ‘haute couture’. The project was to establish for Dolce & Gabbana, at its top level, an haute couture house, but one unbound by the rules (and limitations) of the traditional, Paris-defined notions of the form.