There were fairies at the bottom of
Domenico Dolce’ s garden last night.
Queen Titania in a golden crown and a
vast, princess-y, gilded crinoline, too.
There was even a girl with a pair of lace
donkey ears, à la Bottom, wending her
way amongst the ninety-four Dolce &
Gabbana Alta Moda looks worn by girls
who stepped carefully down a steep
winding pathway and onto the expanse of
runway which stretched across Dolce’s
lawn, at sunset in Portofino. An Italianate
Midsummer Night’s Dream, brought to life
in Dolce’s own domain.
It was unreal, on many levels. Guests
converged from all over the world to
participate in the designers’ weekend of
“at home,” deliberately surreal entertainments. “I want to bring them to a
place where fantasy and reality become
confused,” said Dolce. He’d drawn up
every detail of his Arcadian happening in
his sketchbooks—Roman centurion and
Renaissance pages holding flower-
garlanded arches over the heads of
arriving guests, trees sprouting ceramic
Majolica apples, nymphs with filigree
wings, Puck-like figures suspended from
branches.
Some arrived by sea. As the preparations
went on—an army of workers hauling the
props and banqueting provisions half a
mile up the vertingous narrow walkway
from the town— Stefano Gabbana padded
along the quay front in shorts, greeting
friends. A towering super-yacht, complete
with an on-board swimming pool, had
just pulled up next to his own impressive
vessel. Who did that belong to? “A client,”
he said. “Russian.”
So it was a cosmopolitan assembly, an
enthusiastic women’s club of couture
customers, in girlish high-summer holiday spirits, with their husbands and partners, who descended on Dolce’s garden of sybaritic delights. Before them were temptations in excess: corseted ballgowns galore, black lace wicked widow see- through dresses, patchworked multicolored fox fur brocade Poiret coats, Maharaja bejwelled turbans, lushly sweeping silk kimonos. One-offs, for a one- off night—a theatrical crescendo for a couture and resort-presentation-laden summer which has broken all historical records in terms of air miles (and in this case sea miles) traveled. Sometimes, one wonders whether all the mind-bendingly
extravagant expenditure can possibly
result in concrete sales—or whether what
we’ve been seeing is a reputational
marketing expenditure amortized over
perfume and accessories categories, in the expectation of some diffuse payback at a later date. In this case—on the evidence of the changing-room frenzy which broke out after dinner, when customers jostled and laughed as they tried on the looks— there is no doubt Dolce & Gabbana’s Alta Moda fantasy, to some people, is very much reality.
Source: vogue