How do you follow a women’s show of Fellini-esque proportions at the Roman Forum? If you’re Dolce Gabbana, with a men’s show at the Ponte di Castel Sant’Angelo. The circa 134 AD bridge was built by Emperor Hadrian to connect Rome’s city center to his future mausoleum. Over the centuries, the ancient building was transformed into a medieval fortress, a papal residence, and the backdrop for a scene in Roman Holiday. Tonight the castle was lit up like a movie set with klieg lights and scores of Cinecittà extras vamping as cardinals.
Conclave II might be a good name for the would-be film. Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana took priestly garb as their subject, and they left no hem unturned in their study, which ranged from the ascetic to the ornate, emphasis on the ornate: There were starched linen tunics that looked like fashionable updates to the traditional surplice, double-breasted suits dressed up with bejeweled crosses, and dramatic papal robes lavished with crystal embroideries.
The Catholic Church has a new Pope, and coincidentally or not, things ecclesiastic are trending. There was the Conclave movie last year and Fleabag’s Hot Priest Andrew Scott is one of Hollywood’s most wanted actors, but this is no overnight affectation chez Dolce Gabbana. An astute observer of the brand recalled a story, possibly apocryphal, that when Domenico met Stefano in 1980 at the Milan nightclub No Ties, he was dressed as a priest.
Over the decades, the designers made Catholic imagery one of their defining signatures. They grew up in the church and no doubt Fellini’s Roma, with its liturgical fashion show scene, also made a major impression. At their 2022 Alta Moda show in Siracusa, a celebration of 10 years of their haute couture collections, the runway was populated by a village’s worth of novitiates and Sicilian widows. We were in the shadow of Saint Peter’s Basilica tonight, was it not profane to marry the sexy (so many beautiful young models) with the sacred?
Don Alberto Rocca, Dolce’s priest and a regular guest at the brand’s Alta Moda festivities, said no. “You are on the razor, as we say in Italian, but what I like is that it’s not mocking, it’s about the spirit. More often than not, you see people using religious symbols in order to deprive them of their symbolism, but that’s not the case with D&G, otherwise I would not be here.”
After the show, Dolce laughed, “I want to be Pope very soon.” In fact, the opening look was an elaborately embellished cape depicting a conclave held in 1903, but it’s not the collection’s religiosity that the clients are interested in; it’s the exacting work with the exquisite, otherworldly results. A fireworks display over the Tiber certainly doesn’t hurt, either.
