Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: As they say, when in Rome, or in this case Milano, I took it upon myself to visit an exhibition highlighting the designs of Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, known as Dolce & Gabbana (D&G).I am someone more drawn to so-called intellectual, almost sensible fashion, and because of that thought that the D&G, Heart to Hand exhibition could be unpleasant, filled with garish, unwearable confections, but as I was in Milano, I planned a visit.I had knowledge of the strong links between Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana's heritage, their love of their Italian, and Sicilian culture in particular, their geographic location in the Mediterranean and their fashion designs.Founded in 1985 by the two designers, Dolce born and raised in the province of Palermo Italy, and Gabbana born in Milan and raised in Veneto region of Italy, and their aesthetic of Italian-ness, of abundant luxury has not waivered, they have a brand handwriting that is noticeable in their fashions, their merchandising, and which also extends to the usual fashion and fashion related products of shoes, handbags, scarves, sunglasses, spectacles, perfumes, as well as the not so usual homewares, food, beverages, pasta, cake, wine, SMEG refrigerators and Bialetti stove top espresso machines, all anchoring the brand as a beacon of Sicilian culture, and Italian-ness in general.In Image-Music-Text, Barthes (1977) analyzed an advertisement for Panzani 1 , a purveyor of Italian food products, and proposed that because of the connotations of the image of pasta and their Italian name, the brand was also a signifier of Italianicity.Barthes went on to discuss that, "Italianicity is not Italy, it is the condensed essence of everything that could be Italian, from spaghetti to painting."(Barthes, 1977, p.48)Much like D&Gs foray into products that are not fashion or fashion related, but which further endorse the Italian-ness and Italianicity of D&G, obvious in some collections, for example in Sicilian Traditions section, and strengthening the brand identity as a whole.The curator, Florence Müller, has contributed to more than 200 exhibitions worldwide over their career to date.
Author: Margo Barton
Institutions: École du Louvre, Institut français de la mode
Language: English
Subfield: Visual Arts and Performing Arts
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7104031370