“Italy, without Sicily, leaves no image in the spirit. It is in Sicily that the key to everything is found. […] The purity of the contours, the softness of everything, the yielding exchange of colors, the harmonious unity of the sky with the sea and the sea with the earth. […] Anyone who has seen them only once will possess them for life. ” Thus Goethe in I travel to italy, written between 1813 and 1817, perhaps the most important and evocative declaration of love for our country – and Sicily in particular – by a German author. Not everyone, today as two centuries ago, is lucky enough to savor Sicily in its essence.
Surely it happened to the guests, who arrived from all over the world last weekend for the big party – so we can call it – conceived by Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana for the ten years since their debut in haute couture, unique pieces that for any maison, at least ideally, they represent the maximum expression of creativity and craftsmanship. For that first time, in 2012, the two stylists-entrepreneurs did not deny the vocation to have their own way, uniting reason and heart, without following (or copying) the example of other fashion houses: they did not ask for hospitality in Paris, where twice a year there are parades of high fashion, nor in Rome, but rather chose Sicily, setting up the show in Taormina. In 2022 they chose Syracuse and its surroundings: haute couture (women’s clothes and accessories) paraded at nightfall in the Piazza del Duomo on the island of Ortigia, haute couture (for men) in nearby Marzamemi. Last Monday the four days of events ended with a party in the party at the Maniace Castle.
The list of actresses and singers is very long, from Sharon Stone to Monica Bellucci and Mariah Carey, with a “splash” of men, such as Robert Lewandowski, Bayern Munich forward. Not models or celebrities for an evening or perhaps for a season, but women with a strong personality, in turn outside the box, who – it is no coincidence – have long-standing relationships with Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana. Ortigia and Marzamemi are stages of history and culture, we could say, but Dolce & Gabbana have managed, with the spectacular evening productions, to make them even more theatrical.
Hardly, as Goethe argued, those who attended the events will forget the fashion shows, the clothes and accessories themselves. But above all he will have perceived and will perhaps forever feel the echo of all creativity, artisan know-how, the ability to find infinite and always new links between the more or less distant and glorious past of Sicily and a universal present. “After almost 40 years, we feel we have experiences and stylistic exercises of all kinds within us and it is precisely the awareness of dominating the tools of the trade in our own way that has led us to high fashion – say Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana – . A haute couture or tailoring suit is the challenge of challenges and for us it is renewed twice a year. We do not give ourselves limits, we let every idea, even the most complicated, apparently impossible to realize, take shape. This is how we moved on to haute couture and high jewelery and watchmaking ».
Necklaces, rings, bracelets, earrings that last year were presented in Venice, at the Doge’s Palace, but the choice for the long Sicilian weekend is perhaps even more suggestive: the Grotta dei Cordari, so called – the link with the textile tradition, which is always the mirror of a society – because starting from the seventeenth century some artisans worked hemp inside and produced ropes of all kinds, favored by natural humidity. Ten years of challenges with oneself and – let us remember – creative independence and more: Dolce & Gabbana is one of the very few Italian fashion companies with a turnover (well) over a billion that has not succumbed to the lure of large groups or external partners. To describe in detail clothes, accessories and jewels it would take books (which in fact the two designers always create, as a gift and souvenir for customers), but to have access to the magical world of Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana there is another way: listen to the podcast (four episodes for now) Very Italian (Chora Media), available from 7 July on the main platforms. A journey narrated by Isabella Rosselini in the creative imagination of the two stylists who, with their vision, have contributed to making Italian culture and traditions known in the world. It is not like spending four days among the wonders of Syracuse, but it is certainly a way to dream or learn how to do it.