At the Grand Palais, Dolce & Gabbana’s art history lesson

Last year, she drove the Milanese crazy. We bet that in Paris the line will be as long as a bride’s train to admire the few 300 unique creationsrevealed in this exceptional retrospective which has just opened at Grand Palace. Dressing Madonna, Beyoncé or AC Milan footballers, Dolce & Gabbana – who launched his first ready-to-wear collection in 1985, and haute couture in 2012 – is a rare bird. At home, in France, and even simply outside of Italy, the luxury house has never organized a fashion show. This means that the opportunity to see these robesces jewelry and these accessories is precious!

The point is hand-sewn. Under the title of “From the heart to the hand”the curator and fashion historian Florence Müller imagined a sort of enchanting theater, where we move from one sequence to another by passing through heavy curtains.

Dresses inspired by Renaissance masters

Between the beating of a heart and ballroom music, the dizzying ultra instagrammable scenographyplaying with mirrors and video mappingunderlines the deep attachment of Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana to Italian know-how and their multiple sources of inspiration.

In each room, the journey through art history is always more sumptuous. After a flamboyant demonstration of the excellence of handmade (“handmade”) Italian, from Naples to Syracuse, via Puglia, the second room of the route transports visitors to the Italian Renaissancepaying homage to the architecture of the Farnese Palace. From one creation to another of the “Alta Moda”, “Alta Sartoria” and “Alta Gioielleria” collections, the palettes of the masters parade: Sandro Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, RaphaelTitian, Caravaggio, Piero della Francesca or Giorgione…

Immersion in the Dolce & Gabbana workshop

Change of scenery with the Sicilian traditions : designed from floor to ceiling by island artisans, the exuberant and colorful room [ill. ci-dessus]in which a Sicilian float sits among feathered dresses and wide crinoline skirts, is a work in itself. Just as stunning, with its stuccoes and bas-reliefs, is the sequence which celebrates the “white baroque”, where a wedding dress carved with cherubs.

Of devotion [ill. en Une]which transcends Dolce & Gabbana’s quest for excellence, to great legendary operas (La Traviata, Aida, Rigoletto, Tosca…), THE influences are as varied as they are rich. We pass by an evocation of the Temple of Concord of Agrigento, a masterpiece of Hellenistic art, whose Doric columns dominate the fall-winter 2019–2020 collection steeped in mythes antiquesbefore marveling at the Byzantine mosaicssuch as we see in the cathedral of Monreale, in Sicily, or in the Basilica of Saint Mark in Venice. Upstairs, we are amazed to discover a reconstituted workshop with real Dolce & Gabbana seamstresses in action!

Meeting between fashion, arts and traditions

Cinema has also imprinted the retina of Domenico and Stefano, in particular The Cheetah by Luchino Visconti (1963), adapted from the eponymous novel set in Sicily, a cult work to which an entire room is dedicated. In its one-way mirrors, we do not see ourselves, we allow ourselves to be projected into the famous ball scene where Burt Lancaster makes Claudia Cardinale waltz under the clear gaze of Alain Delon.

With our eyes still misty, we leave Palermo to Milan. It is a sublime dress in golden macramé lace which concludes the exhibition in an evocation of the dome of the Vittorio Emanuele II Gallerysynthesis between architecture and fashion. Unless we prefer the great Murano traditionVenetian island where glass work dates back to the 13th century^e century, and fantastic material to dream of for Dolce & Gabbana with its dresses sparkling with crystal embroidery… What a luminous stroke of brilliance!