IT STARTED IN NAPLES
Dolce & Gabbana’s haute couture love letter to Italy was addressed to muse Sophia Loren’s home town.
Dolce & Gabbana’s haute couture love letter to Italy was addressed to muse Sophia Loren’s home town.
If ever there were an award for fashion patriots, Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana would win it hands down. Since its inception in Taormina, four years ago, Dolce & Gabbana’s Alta Moda (haute couture) line has been inspired by – and shown in – some of Italy’s most iconic locations, from Portofino to Capri. The four-day event brings the house’s couture clients in from around the world, with the first having taken guests to Sicily to muse upon Italian seaside glamour.
The most recent took them to Naples, dedicated to the romanticism of the Italian soul. The city has had to contend with a plethora of dangers, from German occupation and bombing in World War II to the Camorra, the Neapolitan version of the Mafia, while the dormant Mount Vesuvius looms in the skyline. They all serve as reminders of Naples’s troubled history, but along with chaos remains the pervasive sense of seductive and spirited glamour, borne out of adversity. The annual festival of the city’s patron saint San Gennaro is tied directly to life and death; the belief is the liquefaction of his preserved blood predicts the city’s fortunes.
The alleyway of Via San Gregorio Armeno, in the city’s oldest quarter, was transformed into a runway; the high-net-worth audience watching the 99-look Alta Moda show from a single row of velvet chairs, with local families behind them. The location was risky, considering the difficulty of getting people who normally travel with bodyguards in and out of the tiny cobblestone streets. “The street experience is unique, but it made sense to us because