Dolce & Gabbana: a masterclass in seduction

Severely tailored jackets and black lacy underwear were featured in a collection that reminded many of the Nineties. What an irrestistible juggernaut of a fashion show.

From beginning to end, Dolce & Gabbana’s autumn/winter 2010 presentation in Milan yesterday afternoon was a masterclass in audience seduction. They started by plying us with wine, salami, and fascinating live feeds of the backstage action. At the crescendo, a screen show slow-mo, monochrome footage of the designer’s nobly-artisan, white-coat wearing workforce, matched to emotion- goading, chord-heavy Moulin Rouge music (signalling “we must help this industry”). On the catwalk, Dolce & Gabbana’s retinue of models marched en masse in severely tailored jackets and black lacy underwear. In between, the duo put out a collection that reminded many of Dolce & Gabbana back in the Nineties; the central tenets were sleek, ordered tailoring, some beautifully lustrous velvets, Chanel-but-more-so cloque suits, and animal prints. There were funky gold headphones, chaste-yet-racy flower prints on mohair and silk, and and enough black lace to kit out a Sicilian widows’ convention and a Victoria’s Secret show. Sleek, beautiful clothes that — from the salami to the model army — Dolce & Gabbana pulled out every stop to make us love.Afterwards, backstage, devotee after devotee approached the pair and confessed to feeling teary. “I wanted the audience to have emotion, that’s our job,” said Stefano Gabbana. As is creating sexy, elegant clothing for women. Jobs (both of them) done.