This is how you wear your country pride on your sleeve. Literally.
In their most recent show for Milan Fashion Week, Dolce & Gabbana takes on the nationalistic route and celebrates its country of origin. The collection romanticizes Italy via a hodgepodge of prints and silhouettes that capture the country’s great tourist cities and iconic attractions.
Looks and clothes range from kitschy to elegantly feminine. References to 1940s Italiana abound: pasticceria wrapper silks and pasta-box prints, pencil skirts embroidered with tropical images, silken turbans, long shirt-dresses, and large glitter sunglasses. The tourist vibe, on the other hand, is emphasized via embroideries of tourist spots like the Coliseum and the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
Despite being an ode to a lost era, the collection keeps up with its spring/summer theme. Bags and clothes and models’ hairs are adorned with fruits and flowers, with colorful straw baskets to match.
But it’s not just the clothes peddling these themes. Models took actual selfies on the runway and hashtagged them with #ItaliaisLOVE—a direct reference to the tourist’s new way of capturing places and memories (that is, with him or herself included). The set also had a street-side food stand for people to buy—we mean, marvel at.
The inspiration for the show came from studying a book that details Italy after World War II. “Materials [at that time] were scarce and designers had turned to traditional handicraft techniques and domestic items from which to fashion clothes,” says Stefano Gabbana on the abundance of hand painting and embroidery here.
Now that’s one fashionable throwback right there.
Click on the slideshow to see to view the show’s main looks!
[The Cut]
Photos courtesy of Alessandro Lucioni via The Cut
