Dolce & Gabbana aujourd'hui : où en est la maison

The corset came down the runway in February 2024, black brocade over a rigid structure, worn with a pencil skirt split to the thigh. The model's hair was pulled back tight. Her heels were sharp. The look was not new — Dolce & Gabbana has been sending corsets down runways since the early nineties — but the context had shifted. The audience was younger than it used to be. The front row was full of phones. The house that built its reputation on Sicilian widows and Sophia Loren now courts Gen Z through campaigns shot in vertical video.

Dolce & Gabbana is forty years old. Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana founded the house in 1985, showing their first collection in Milan with six looks and borrowed models. They worked from an apartment. The clothes were body-conscious, unapologetic, rooted in southern Italian codes that the rest of fashion had largely ignored. Black lace over skin. Corsetry that shaped rather than concealed. A vision of femininity that was knowing, not naive.

By the mid-nineties, the house had become a commercial force. Madonna wore the cone bra corset on her Girlie Show tour in 1993. The tailoring was sharp, the silhouettes unambiguous. Dolce & Gabbana understood spectacle — not as distraction but as declaration. Their women were not waifs. They were women who walked into rooms and changed the temperature.

The aesthetic has remained remarkably stable. The references are still Sicilian: lemons, ceramics, religious iconography, the kind of maximalism that reads as both folk art and high craft. The house returns to the same motifs season after season. Lace. Corsetry. Animal print. Florals dense enough to feel architectural. This is not reinvention. It is refinement of a single idea, which is either the house's greatest strength or its central limitation, depending on who you ask.

La direction actuelle

Dolce and Gabbana still design the collections themselves. There is no creative director brought in from outside, no generational shift in leadership. The two men, now in their sixties, remain at the helm. This continuity is unusual in an industry that increasingly treats creative direction as a rotating role. But it also means the house moves at its own pace, indifferent to the churn of trend cycles that govern other labels.

The recent collections have leaned into codes established decades ago. Spring 2024 revisited the corset and the bustier, paired with high-waisted trousers and skirts that emphasised the waist. Menswear continues to explore southern Italian masculinity: sharp tailoring, open shirts, a studied casualness that is anything but casual. The house is not interested in quiet luxury. It is interested in volume, in presence, in clothes that announce themselves.

The question is whether that approach still resonates. Dolce & Gabbana's revenue in 2023 reached approximately €1.9 billion, a recovery from the dip during the pandemic but still below the house's 2019 peak. The brand is not struggling, but it is not growing at the rate of its competitors. Gucci, under various creative directors, has rewritten its identity multiple times in the past decade. Prada has layered intellectualism over its craft. Dolce & Gabbana has remained Dolce & Gabbana.

Image et perception

The house's image has fractured in recent years. In 2018, a series of promotional videos for a Shanghai runway show depicted a Chinese model struggling to eat Italian food with chopsticks. The backlash was immediate. The show was cancelled. Major Chinese retailers pulled the brand. Dolce & Gabbana issued apologies, but the damage was done. China, which had been a significant growth market, became a site of resistance.

The controversy was not the first. Dolce and Gabbana have made statements over the years — on politics, on family, on identity — that have alienated parts of their audience. The designers have described themselves as politically incorrect, a framing that reads differently now than it did in the nineties. What once felt provocative now often feels tone-deaf.

But the house has also found new audiences. Younger consumers, particularly in the Middle East and among certain segments of the American market, have embraced the brand's maximalism. The logo — DG in a baroque frame — is visible again, worn without irony. Dolce & Gabbana's presence on social media is significant. The brand collaborates with influencers, seeds product strategically, understands the mechanics of digital attention.

The Alta Moda line, the house's couture-adjacent offering, has become a key revenue driver. These are not runway pieces. They are custom commissions, often shown in elaborate presentations in Italian cities and towns. The clients are wealthy, international, and willing to pay for exclusivity. Alta Moda allows Dolce & Gabbana to operate outside the traditional fashion calendar, to create spectacle on its own terms.

Le marché actuel

Dolce & Gabbana is not a conglomerate brand. It remains independently owned by its founders, which gives the house control but also limits its resources. LVMH and Kering can absorb risk, invest in infrastructure, weather downturns. Independent houses operate with less cushion.

The brand's licensing deals — fragrances, eyewear, accessories — provide stable revenue. The perfume line is particularly strong. Light Blue, launched in 2001, remains a bestseller. These products reach consumers who will never buy a Dolce & Gabbana dress but want access to the brand's codes. The licensing model is old-fashioned, but it works.

Ready-to-wear is more complicated. The house's aesthetic is specific, which makes it difficult to pivot when tastes shift. Minimalism has cycled in and out of fashion multiple times since Dolce & Gabbana's founding, and each time the house has stayed its course. That consistency has built a loyal customer base, but it has also meant slower growth.

The menswear line has found traction with a younger demographic. The tailoring is less formal than traditional Italian suiting, cut closer to the body, often worn without ties. Dolce & Gabbana understands male vanity, and the clothes reflect that. The customer is not interested in blending in.

Où en sommes-nous

Dolce & Gabbana is not in crisis, but it is not ascendant. The house occupies a strange position: too established to be emerging, too specific to be universal, too independent to be absorbed. It is a brand that knows exactly what it is, which is both clarifying and constraining.

The designers have not announced succession plans. There is no obvious next generation within the house. When Dolce and Gabbana eventually step back, the question will be whether the brand can exist without them. Some houses survive the departure of their founders. Others do not.

For now, the work continues. The corsets still come down the runway. The lace is still dense. The silhouettes still cleave to the body. In the front row, phones are raised. The image is captured, filtered, posted. The house that built its reputation on analog seduction now lives in vertical frames, six seconds at a time.

A model walks offstage in Milan, her heels clicking on marble. The dress is black brocade, tight at the waist, flared at the hem. It looks like every Dolce & Gabbana dress and like no other. That is the work the house has always done: the same gesture, repeated until it becomes a language.