Embracing fiery red and rich furs for their fall/winter 2011-2012 collection, Dolce & Gabbana infused their prized Italian machismo with a youthful zest. Shaking up their usual casting with a variety of faces, the designing duo put on display a myriad of influences. From the classic musical styling of Bryan Ferry to the label’s ongoing fascination with the working man or a spunky take on tomorrow’s scholar, Dolce & Gabbana impressed with velvet, color and an endless amount of charm. Rounding out the collection with pinstripes, braces and wingtips, the label put a cool new spin on the marriage of old and new style motifs.
Embracing fiery red and rich furs for their fall/winter 2011-2012 collection, Dolce & Gabbana infused their prized Italian machismo with a youthful zest. Shaking up their usual casting with a variety of faces, the designing duo put on display a myriad of influences. From the classic musical styling of Bryan Ferry to the label’s ongoing fascination with the working man or a spunky take on tomorrow’s scholar, Dolce & Gabbana impressed with velvet, color and an endless amount of charm. Rounding out the collection with pinstripes, braces and wingtips, the label put a cool new spin on the marriage of old and new style motifs.
There was a brilliant Dries Van Noten show some years back that celebrated Bryan Ferry's early-seventies leopard-clad glamness, but his subsequent career as rock's Most Elegant Man has been a significantly under-exploited inspiration in contemporary menswear. Until today, that is, when Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana made him the launchpad for their latest collection. Ferry's record covers were all over the mood board, his music was all over the show, and there he was on the seasonal "icon" T-shirt. It seemed entirely appropriate, then, that the man himself was front-row center. But the show's theme, Sartoria Eccentrica, actually had much less to do with Ferry's own classic style than the designers' re-tailoring of anything classic, starting at Savile Row, for a much younger audience.
The singer's taste for West End girls is well-documented—the beauteous Amanda Sheppard was at his side today. The clothes on the runway, though, were better suited to East End boys. Low-rise, multi-pocketed pants were slung off skinny suspenders. One model sported Freddy Krueger stripes and a trilby casually tossed back on his head. There was a spiffy edge to a checked, fitted, double-breasted jacket, while cropped, double-vented jackets and those pegged, low-slung pants created a boxy, bubble-butted silhouette that added beef to the already buff models. Add that to the chunky, bovver-ready footwear and these boys were a bit of rough fighters, not lovers. But wasn't Bryan Ferry famously a slave to love?
Domenico and Stefano threw the lovers a bone with a couple of pavé-sequined jackets in pink and black, then they closed the show with their own quintessential march past of black velvet jackets and distressed Dolce denims. Call it glam for a brash, butch new age. As for Ferry's more rarified brand of contemporary glamour? That remains to be explored another day.
The latest image leak from Dolce & Gabbana brings forth campaign drama, courtesy of Steven Klein. Joining Dolce & Gabbana’s honorary family of Adam Senn, Noah Mills, Tony Ward, David Gandy ,Sam Webb ,Travis and Sam Whitman. Directed precisely by Domenico and Stefano, the boys are happily raising the temperature in the studio. Perfect abs, elongated silhouette, beach attire.
Spring is around the corner and the Hilfigers are back with an early glimpse at Noah Mills and Sam Way photographed by Craig McDean for Tommy Hilfiger’s latest campaign.
