Dolce & Gabbana have never staged a fashion show in Paris, but they look destined to conquer the city in the next two months thanks to their exhibition Du Coeur à La Main.
Dolce & Gabbana’s Du Coeur à La Main – Mariano Vivanco
Unveiled on Thursday inside the world’s most beautiful exhibition space, the Grand Palais, this sensational exhibition rambles through 11 rooms, rather like its subject. Du Coeur à La Main – meaning From Heart to Hand – is entirely devoted to the last 12 years of Dolce & Gabbana’s career when they launched themselves into Alta Moda – the Italian term for haute couture.
Featuring over 200 unique Alta Moda and Alta Sartoria menswear looks; 300 handmade accessories and 230 pieces of furniture and décor it’s an open love letter to Italian culture and artisans – the wellsprings of Dolce & Gabbana’s creativity.
Since they debuted in Alta Moda in 2012 Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana have switch-backed across the peninsula showing in the great cities and historic sights of Italy: from their opening show in a Roman amphitheater in Taormina, to a Grand Canal palazzo in Venice, Renaissance villa in Florence, or ancient Greek temple of Agrigento in Sicily.
At each stop, working with local artisans, best exemplified by a room devoted to the art and craft of glassmaking, with Venetian mirrors, chandeliers and glass embroidered silver garments, featuring the sparkle of Barovier & Toso, a family-owned artisan business on the lagoon dating back to 1295. Where else but in Italy does tradition have such deep roots?
The duo do have great rivals in couture, though when it comes to menswear couture, they take the heavyweight crown – thanks to their perfectionist tailoring, sense of fantasy, unique embroidery an uncanny sense of witty juxtaposition. Like staging a James Bond inspired show inside ancient Castel dell’Ovo in Naples. Named the Egg Castle, as the Roman poet Virgil is said to have placed an egg in the foundations of this fortress, located where the founders of Naples, Greek colonists of Magna Graecia first built a fortress.
Presented in a section entitled Architectural and Pictorial, most of it menswear, where the intricate construction of coats, suits and capes riffs on the astounding embellishments. Works by Raphael, Titian, Botticelli, Piero della Francesca and the legendary fresco cycle of Annibale Carracci from the Palazzo Farnese in Rome flourish on military coats, corset dresses and grand capes.
Throughout, there is a meeting with other artists, most touchingly with the great French-born, Spanish-Vietnamese artist Anh Duong in the opening room, entitled Handmade. Encapsulating so many of Dolce & Gabbana’s inspirations: baroque, Renaissance, Sicily and religion laced with sizzling sensuality. Famed for her self-portraits, Duong followed the duo to their Alta Moda shows, wearing looks from each collection in the very locations that inspired them. Before painting fantasy imagery of herself in their creations –a Grecian goddess in the Agrigento temple; a Ghirlandaio princess breastfeeding her baby or in a stunning Gattopardo gown in a Palermo’s Palazzo Gangi.
“It turned into a wonderful journey through Italy, where in each city I discovered the most magical museums, buildings and people,” mused Duong, who stars in every portrait except one of Naomi Campbell, as a fantasy courtesan in the ultimate feathered fantasy bustier gown.
All Dolce & Gabbana shows open with the theme music to Il Gattopardo, Luchino Visconti’s masterpiece on Sicilian aristocracy navigating the political upheavals of Garibaldi and the Italian Risorgimento. The duo even devote a whole room to it – starring Duong’s dress and a recreation of the famous Gallery of Mirrors in Palazzo Gangi, where the film’s magisterial wedding ball takes place. All interspersed with clips from the film. Starring the most beautiful couple of Italian cinema – Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale.
At the entrance to Du Coeur à La Main, a large cube of screens project a video by artist Felice Limosani entitled The Hands of Humanity, hands gesticulating like messengers suggesting the universal language of truth. One of four video artists whose work announces the expo.
“Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana have succeeded in realizing this dream because they are among the rare designers who are both founders and owners of their fashion house and thus free to do whatever they like,” underlines the exhibition curator Florence Müller.
These two gents are famed for their liberating and racy corsetry for sexy Sicilian widows. This exhibition instead features scores of far more mournful figures, their heads shrouded in black veils, their handles clutching candles, Gregorian chant on the soundtrack. Standing in a line in a passage that leads to an atelier, where a half dozen seamstresses, embroiders and tailors work silently making the uber baroque couture caprices that is at the heart of this duo’s DNA.
Delicate intricate artistry seen in other rooms devoted to themes like Opera, Divinity and Divine Mosaics. In an exhibition of beguiling contrasts from Devotion, a mock altar in black and gold with beguiling bishops, naughty nuns and giant sacred hearts inspired by contrapposto figures from 17th and 18thecentury woodwork. Following on a White Baroque space with sculpted dresses and breastplates in exceptional stucco work.
Dolce, born in Sicily, and Gabbana, born in Milano, opened their house their 1985, gathering critical acclaim for their blend of Italian cinematic style and Sicilian fantasy. Commercial success and explosive growth followed, as they became the bad boys of Milan, probably best known for their sexy slip dresses.
Passing a billion dollars in sales, before suddenly pivoting in the last decade. Ditching their youth-orientated D&G collection and moving their house and concept way up market with Italian couture.
Du Coeur à La Main was originally staged to packed audiences in the Palazzo Reale in Milan last year. This edition in Paris will last until March 31. It’s unmissable for any proper fashionista.
In a very real sense Domenico and Stefano have long dreamed of matching the heights of great Paris labels like Chanel, Schiaparelli, Balenciaga or Dior. This display will ensure them a place in the Pantheon of the truly greatest designers.
