Interview

DOMENICO DOLCE: I look at the TV, and the most interesting interviews with financial people are in Japan. It’s a mistake to think things are as bad everywhere, because in Japan and China there is more cash than in the States. They are full of liquid assets. The big problem is that all the world wants to copy the American system.

SG: For me, the future isn’t coming from the USA, like it was before. I’ve been saying this for three years. But business is bad everywhere. The rich people still spend, but more carefully. The problem is the people in the middle—and women. With men, it’s different.

DD: You know why? Because my male customer is between 30 and 40—no wife, no girlfriend, living his own life, and spending all his money on himself. 

SG: The money hasn’t changed, it’s the mentality.

DD: This moment is interesting. The worst times can be the best if you think with positive energy.

SG: We started in a crisis—both the men’s and the women’s collections.

DD: Maybe we go well with crisis. [laughs] When we launched the women’s collection in 1986, there was the bombing of Libya, and all the Americans cancelled their appointments. They had to leave for Switzerland to take a plane back to the U.S. And then there was the invasion of Kuwait when we launched the men’s collection in 1990.

SG: So when the shops say we don’t sell like we did before, the customer has changed, blah blah blah . . . I’ve heard this song since 1986.

DD: Today in Corriere della Serra there was a story about this financial crisis bringing people closer, making friends and family more important.

SG: Yes, but I’m also tired of reading this stupid stuff. I’m sick of it. We said the same thing after September 11. We just continue to do our job in the same way, maybe putting more energy, more fantasia, more creativity into it.

TB: I felt that with your Spring collection—it was so lush, so rich. It felt very extreme. I wonder if you were thinking ahead to what was going to happen when you designed it.

SG: No. I think our customers don’t need anything. They just want something special. This is why we do collections—not just the Spring fashion show, but the pre-Fall and cruise lines too. The customers love to find something in the shop they don’t see in a magazine. This is the trick about the cruise and pre-Fall collections. Nobody knows about them. When you go to the shop, you really find something you don’t see anywhere else.

TB: Once I would have said that people want something they have seen, but you’re saying that’s changed. Are people more confident? 

SG: About fashion, for sure. For three seasons we worked on volume, not shape, and in the end, you know what the customer said? No! All the magazines were saying it’s not about sexy, it’s about volume, but in the end, our women said no. It’s always the same—all men and women want to be sexy. In the last three seasons, when we tried to change shapes with the new volume, customers altered the shape in the shop to be tighter—like before.

TB: So that means magazines are out of touch?

SG: Magazines do what they want, but the customers don’t give a damn. Believe me, it’s like in the ’80s—there’s a big gap. What the fashion system says and what the fashion customer says are really two different things.

TB: What did the fashion system say in the ’80s?

SG: Armani, Ferré, Versace, big shows, tight trousers, miniskirts . . . So we did the opposite: very soft, romantic, the Sicilian-bustier look. We stood out just because we were so different. That sexy dress with the black corset was the essence of Dolce & Gabbana. But you know, it’s an evolution, month by month, day by day. We love to change. My favorite piece is the bra from 1984. [He points to that very item of clothing, mounted and framed on the wall like a holy relic, right under a huge Julian Schnabel painting] And we continue to do it. One season it’s bigger, or we change the color, the stitching, and everything. But I love looking for something different.

DD: When we sketch the show, it’s a dream. I stay with my feet on the floor when I dream, but we are completely free . . . I don’t know. I can imagine a transparent suit for men. But at the end of the day, you know what we sell? Style. The essence of Dolce & Gabbana is the corset for women, the white shirt and very fitted trousers for men.

TB: Surely that’s disappointing for you then if your dream is big, gorgeous shearling coats [from the Fall 2008 collection] and people still want the black suit with the white shirt.

DD: I’m a customer of Dolce & Gabbana. I like a lot of clothes by Dolce & Gabbana.

SG: [needling] Why don’t you buy the shearling? 

DD: If you open my wardrobe, it’s very boring. I have 10 black suits. One is one-button, one is two-button, one is shawl-collared. Maybe the trouser is bigger for the sneaker or finer for the crocodile shoe. So there is a lot for men.

SG: But you know what people wear. The shearling coat is very masculine and very sweet at the same time, but to actually wear that is difficult.

DD: We talk too much about this shearling, but it opens the mind to move somewhere. And in this moment of crisis, when people are afraid, if you don’t make the dream . . .

TB: Once more with shearling. I’ve been thinking that you’ve been going back to your roots, to
Visconti’s The Leopard [1963], especially with the spirit of the Spring shows. 

DD: Dolce & Gabbana at the moment is very strange. I think it’s the same for every designer.
After you go out, you come back inside.