Dolce & Gabbana Women

While most fashion designers have been known to prefer to work alone, there are a handful of creative geniuses that seek strategic collaborations with other equally talented designers. Such is the story behind the phenomenal success of Dolce & Gabbana, globally known for creating the look of the celebrity stars.

Partners in both life and business, the two Italian designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana crossed paths while they were both working as assistants in a Milan atelier. Since bother share the same passion for the baroque, the ventured to create name together in the fashion industry way back in 1985. Their big break cam when the top organizers of the Milano Collezioni encouraged them to join the fashion show that seeks to launch new talents. After a year, the two was able to come up with the very first Dolce & Gabbana Women's wear fashion show, their designs offering a refreshing blend of the unflagging Mediterranean spirit combined with the charming English eccentricity.

The very first inspiration of the Dolce & Gabbana women's collection was the eclectic and colorful thrift store in Bohemia. This was blatantly reflected in their colorful designs, animal prints (often described to be a resonance of the haute hippydom), the collection takes particular insight from Italy's film history. Domenico Dolce claims that they often design like a movie, where they brainstorm first for the story and make designs of clothing pieces that would best fit the movie they have in mind. While this might be a rather unorthodox approach, Dolce & Gabbana women are more focused on creating flattering clothes rather than sparking new trends.

Among the remarkable trademarks of D & G fashion is the introduction of the concept: the use of innerwear as outwear. This explains why those corsets and intricate bra fastenings take precedence in a number of Dolce & Gabbana ads. Other notable fashion statements that were distinctly theirs are the gangster boss, embroidered coats, extravagant prints and pinstripe suits. The D & G collections are often describes as the fetish meets femininity style are usually backed with very powerful advertising campaigns. However, all without the glitzy and flashy trappings and hyped up ads, the essence of the D&G look is simply to make all women who wear their products devastatingly sexy.

The dynamic duo is often referred to as the “ George and Gilbert of the Italian fashion”. Quite surprisingly, their fashion interest soon evolved to include a musical influence in 1996, when they released a techno beat single called D & G is love. However, despite the resounding and phenomenal success, the two have readily conceded that luck has actually played a major role in accomplishments in the fashion industry.

However, their story is far from what could be described as a storybook success since the fashion house also suffered in own share of setbacks and hindrances. Just recently, the company's campaigned generated quite a controversy since it was badly criticized by Britain's Advertising Standards Authority last January 2007. The reason behind the negative protests in the fact that the D&G models in their campaigns were seen brandishing knives, which of course connotes violence. Another equally controversial advertisements met complaints in Spain when a ad showed a male forcibly holding a woman's wrist to the ground, while a small group of men simply looks on. Such disturbing images have prompted the Spanish Labor and Social Affairs Ministry to label it as illegal and humiliatingly to women in general. The authorities also claimed that the pictures don't have any relation to the D & G products the company is selling. The outrage resulted to the ban of the said advertisement and soon after, the Italian government also followed suit.

While this crisis may cause some upheavals, in the world of fashion bad publicity is essentially still publicity. Quite fondly, the two talented are among the fashion industry's rebels, still adorned and respected by many.

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