From the Heart to the Hands: Dolce&Gabbana
April 7rh – July 31st 2024
Milan, Palazzo Reale
The exhibition pays homage to Italian style and explores the Dolce&Gabbana brand’s unconventional approach to luxury. Dolce&Gabbana is one of the leading luxury and fashion brands in the world. The Sicilian Domenico Dolce and the Milanese Stefano Gabbana founded their prêt-à-porter fashion house in Milan in 1984; their deep attachment to traditional Italian handcraft kindled their desire to venture into haute couture.
The common thread behind each of their creations is based on their strong dedication to craftmanship and details and their passion for Italian culture and artistic treasures. 
While entering the ten rooms of the exhibition the beauty and the surprise is so unexpected you will get goose pimples and your senses will be captured by the music, by the scents, by the colours, by the emblematic locations in Italy, by gold, …
The background walls are made of 24 carat gold mosaic.
This is a spectacular journey into their sources of inspiration – art, architecture, crafts, music, opera and ballet, folk traditions, theatre, cinema, literature – and on the other hand it is a homage to the best of the Italian “fatto a mano”, handmade. The two designers work with master craftspeople. The art of ornament – embroidery, lace, trimmings – embellishes the sophisticated cut of the garments, while shapes and transparency effects reveal the skilled work of sartorial structuring, corsetry and draping.
From the Heart to the Hands: the origin of ideas pulsating in the heart but are the hands, the magical vehicle through which these ideas are brought to life.
I had the privilege to meet Florence Müller, the fashion curator of the exhibition. She is professor, author of more than 40 books, and has held the positions of Director/Curator of UFAC (Union Française des Arts du Costume) at Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris and of Curator of Textile Art and Fashion at the Denver Art Museum.
Milano Collection, S/S 2020 Haute Couture (Alta Moda) Cloak depicting the Caravaggio’s Fruit basket conserved at the Ambrosiana Art Gallery. Needlepoint embroidery in cotton and Lurex, gold-trimmed frogging, swakara collar and silk velvet profiles
Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana have always been the creative and stylistic source of all the brand’s activities, as well as the drivers behind the development strategies. They have succeeded in achieving this dream because they are among the rare designers who are both the founders and the owners of their fashion house and thus free to do whatever they like.
From the Heart to the Hands is an outstanding declaration of love towards Italy and Milan is the first stop of an international tour that will include some of the greatest cultural centres worldwide.
Agrigento Collection, F/W 2019-20, Haute Couture (Alta Moda) Lamé mesh cape embroidered with plissé chiffon, velvet ribbon, Lurex thread, crystals and stones.
This unique tribute to their careers which is the expression of Italianness had to start here, in Milan in the shadow of the “Madonnina” the golden plated statue on the highest spire of the Duomo. This is a symbol of Milan, and this is how this gorgeous, unprecedented exhibition closes.
For further information about the exhibition and about fashion in Milan, please contact me.
