How are things for Dolce & Gabbana? The current state of play of one of the most complicated cases of recent fashion

Dolce & Gabbana is a divisive brand, no doubt, but one that for decades has been part of the Italian and international imagination. In public perception, their story is clearly divided, in November 2018, by a dramatic watershed: the promotional video for the titanic fashion show, then cancelled, which was supposed to inaugurate their glorious entry into the Chinese market. Things turned out differently: the video aroused the indignation of half the world, a then newborn Diet Prada hunched over the two designers with unprecedented violence and the Chinese business of the brand went into full crash-and-burn mode. The fashion world, dramatic by definition, soon declared the brand dead and buried – but perhaps its judgment was too hasty: although it is true that the China-gate represented a critical turning point for the brand, it is also true that it was not a fatal headshot. How did Dolce & Gabbana recover?

After the China-gate

The brand has proved extremely resistant despite the controversies that have surrounded it, also thanks to two other aces up its sleeve: the first is the Alta Sartoria/Alta Moda line (for men and women respectively) that has resisted well the shocks of public opinion thanks to a loyal clientele, the second (and less obvious) is their success in the circles of archive fashion, which instead have kept alive the brand's memory among fans of the rarest and most eclectic designs. Both of these "aces up its sleeve" have to do with the quality of the offer: recently, talking about the recent couture trend for men, an article by WWD noted how the clientele of Dolce & Gabbana's Alta Sartoria is equally divided between men and women, professionals with strong economic availability who love not only the elaborate clothes to order of the brand but also its pharaonic fashion shows (the last was in Piazza della Signoria in Florence) accompanied by luxurious dinners and various divertissements that make the brand's customers part of a glitzy world that go far beyond the simple fashion show. The same development of the Alta Gioielleria line shows that Dolce & Gabbana's most exclusive clientele caters to designers for made-to-order products covering all aspects of lifestyle such as elaborate watches or necklaces. 

As for archive fashion, on the other hand, mostly military trousers and bomber jackets dating back to the 90s and early 2000s – all products that, starting from specialized showrooms such as Silver League, have instead seduced a different clientele, more underground and with less purchasing power but with greater design culture. This second-hand clientele does not contribute directly to the turnover of the brand (which however has no problems with the concept of discounts and outlets) but helps it, in a completely immaterial way, to be perceived as part of the Gotha of archive fashion reminding all enthusiasts that, before the gigantic logos, the crazy and chaotic colours and the muscle jocks in underwear, Dolce & Gabbana had a more detailed and precise design language and imagery than immediately commercial (emerged, for that reason, in the FW20 collection that was perhaps their best ready-to-wear in the last ten years) that had made them the protagonists of that Milanese fashion of the 90s of which the late Franca Sozzani was the queen.

An unstoppable success

The controversial saga that began with China-gate, however, has not yet ended. According to Julianna Law of Jing Daily, the brand's recent move out of Chengdu International Finance Square, one of Western China's major urban and commercial centres, would suggest a strategic retreat due to weakening sales in the country. While the brand's fame clashes with the nationalism of Chinese consumers in Asia, on the other side of the world Dolce & Gabbana has sued Tony Liu and Lindsey Schuyler of Diet Prada for defamation for $600 million - certainly a symbolic figure that will be reduced, but which has the potential, in case the two designers win, to hit and sink Diet Prada forever. It is worth noting that the lawsuit was not filed with Diet Prada but with its two founders - a type of legal attack that was undoubtedly more personal and direct and that, to quote Jing Daily all the time, «paint[s] the brand as aggressive».

It must be said, however, that the perception you have of a brand varies from country to country: if in China and in the world of fashion activists Dolce & Gabbana is a villain, in Europe and America the weight of the China-gate controversy has not been felt at all, the parades of the two are still an event and their gigantic billboards still carpet railway stations and airports in Milan and half of Italy. The case of Dolce & Gabbana, in the final analysis, remains perhaps the most complex and emblematic of fashion history in the age of social media and post-truth.