The corset came back this season, and so did the lace, and so did Sicily

The corset came back this season, and so did the lace, and so did Sicily. The Spring/Summer 2024 runway in Milan opened with a procession of black dresses — each one fitted, embroidered, laden with the kind of ornamentation that reads as devotion from a distance and as labour up close. Dolce & Gabbana has been staging this tableau, in one form or another, for thirty years. The question is no longer whether the house knows what it is doing. The question is whether that knowing is enough.

Foundation and the Milanese Codes

Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana met in 1980, working as assistants in the same Milanese atelier. By 1985 they had launched their own label. The debut collection in 1986 was shown as part of Milano Collezioni, and the silhouette was already there: the corset, the structured jacket, the skirt that moved. They were not inventing a vocabulary so much as isolating one — pulling Southern Italian iconography, Catholic pageantry, and mid-century cinema into a single, legible language.

The house rose quickly. By the early nineties, Dolce & Gabbana had established what would become its core tension: a nostalgia for something that never quite existed, rendered in garments built for right now. The 1992 collection leaned into widows' weeds and peasant blouses. The 1996 show featured Madonna, pregnant, in a slip dress. The clothes knew they were costumes, but they were cut like armour.

What made the work compelling was not the references themselves but the sincerity with which they were deployed. This was not irony. This was two men from Southern Italy — Dolce from Sicily, Gabbana from Milan by way of Venice — using fashion as a form of mythmaking. The Sicily they presented was both real and invented: lemons, lace, the black of mourning and the gold of feast days.

The Peak and the Playbook

The house reached its commercial and cultural apex in the late nineties and early 2000s. Revenue climbed. The advertising became iconic in the way that only Testino and Meisel could make iconic: sun-drenched, skin-forward, unambiguous. Dolce & Gabbana was selling a fantasy, but it was a fantasy with a price tag and a distribution network.

The men's line, launched in 1990, became a separate engine. The three-piece suit, often in pinstripe or Prince of Wales check, became a house signature. So did the louche tailoring, the open shirt, the look of a man who had just left a very good lunch. By the mid-2000s, the house was dressing everyone: musicians, actors, athletes, the sons of oligarchs. The clothes were not quiet, and they were not meant to be.

But the playbook was set. Each season brought variations on the same themes: corsetry, baroque prints, fruit motifs, religious imagery, the Sicilian cart, the phrase 'Mamma' embroidered on a bag. The work was consistent. It was also, increasingly, predictable.

The Scandals and the Pivot

In November 2018, Dolce & Gabbana cancelled its Shanghai runway show after a series of promotional videos sparked widespread backlash in China. The videos, which depicted a Chinese model struggling to eat Italian food with chopsticks, were read as condescending at best. Screenshots of private messages allegedly sent by Stefano Gabbana — dismissive, crude — circulated online. The fallout was immediate. Chinese retailers pulled product. Celebrities distanced themselves. The brand issued apologies.

The financial impact was significant. China had been a growth market; now it was a crater. According to reports, revenue declined in the quarters that followed. The house did not pivot away from its aesthetic codes — it doubled down on them — but it did begin to recalibrate its commercial strategy.

One answer was collaboration. Dolce & Gabbana began partnering with other brands and platforms at a pace that felt less like strategy and more like momentum. There were capsules with Smeg, with Baci Perugina, with Puma, with Kim Kardashian's Skims. Some collaborations made sense within the house's visual language. Others felt like reach.

Another answer was digital. The house embraced NFTs in 2021, auctioning a nine-piece collection called 'Collezione Genesi' for approximately six million dollars. It was an early, high-profile move into the space, and it generated headlines. Whether it generated lasting brand equity is harder to measure.

The Creative Now

Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana remain the creative directors. There has been no handoff, no outside hire, no succession narrative. The duo, now in their sixties, continue to design every collection themselves. This is unusual. Most heritage houses have long since brought in new blood, either by choice or by necessity. Dolce & Gabbana has not.

The recent collections reflect this continuity. Spring/Summer 2024 was Sicily again: black lace, corsets, headscarves, models walking to a soundtrack of Italian folk music. Fall/Winter 2024 menswear was pinstripes and overcoats, the codes of Milanese dressing rendered in exaggerated proportion. The work is executed at a high level. The tailoring is sharp. The embroidery is dense. The casting has become more international, more varied in age and type, though the aesthetic remains fixed.

What has shifted is the context. In 2024, fashion is faster, more fragmented, more driven by digital content than by the runway. Dolce & Gabbana's approach — rooted in a specific, insistent vision — can read as either clarity or rigidity, depending on where you stand. The house has not chased trends. It has not rebranded. It has not hired a creative director from Central Saint Martins to 'refresh the codes.' It has simply continued.

The Financial Picture

Dolce & Gabbana remains privately held, so full financials are not public. But available data suggests the house is stable rather than ascendant. Revenue reportedly sits in the range of one to 1.5 billion euros annually, a figure that has held relatively steady over the past five years. The brand operates over 250 stores worldwide. Licensing deals — fragrances, eyewear — continue to perform.

The China recovery has been slow. Some retailers have returned to stocking the brand, but the relationship is not what it was. The core markets now are Italy, the United States, and the Middle East. The customer base skews older and wealthier than the industry average, which is both a strength and a limitation.

In 2023, there were reports that the founders were exploring a potential sale of the business. No deal materialised. Whether that was due to valuation, terms, or a change of heart is unclear. What is clear is that Dolce & Gabbana is not currently positioned as a growth story in the way that Bottega Veneta or Loewe or The Row might be. It is a house with a point of view, a loyal customer, and a back catalogue.

Where the House Stands

Dolce & Gabbana is not in crisis, and it is not in renaissance. It is in a steady state, which in fashion is its own kind of position. The clothes continue to be made. The shows continue to happen. The imagery continues to be unmistakable: if you see a dress covered in lemons and roses, you know where it came from.

The challenge is relevance, which is different from recognition. The house is famous. It is not, at this moment, driving the conversation. It is not the brand that young designers cite as an influence. It is not the brand that editors lead with in a trend piece. It is the brand that appears, consistently, in the middle of the market — present, professional, performing its own history.

There is a version of the future where Dolce & Gabbana remains exactly this: a heritage house with a clear identity, a profitable business, and no particular need to be anything other than what it has always been. There is another version where the lack of evolution becomes a problem, where the audience ages out and the next generation never arrives.

For now, the house is still standing on the same ground it claimed in 1985. The corset fits the same way. The lace is still Sicilian. The designers are still the same two men, in the same city, making the same argument about beauty and tradition and the South. Whether that is enough depends on what you think fashion is supposed to do. Dolce & Gabbana has an answer. It has had the same answer for forty years.