Why the founders of Dolce & Gabbana make fun of their enemies

The Dolce & Gabbana fashion show at Milan Fashion Week has long been a hot ticket. After all, the brand is known for dressing the sexiest women in the world: Madonna, Jennifer Lopez, Scarlett Johansson, Beyoncé. Do not expect to see Selena Gomez at Sunday's event.

In June, the blog Catwalk Italia posted on his Instagram account a Gomez collage in five red dresses – including a Dolce & Gabbana dress of 2011 – prompting the designer Stefano Gabbana to write in the comments: "È proprio brutta !!!" Translation? "She's really ugly."

Miley Cyrus, who wrote that Gabbana's comment was "bulls", while thousands of others demanded that the creator apologize.

Instead, Gabbana, 55, posted on her own account (which does not allow followers to comment) emoji crying and "MY NAME IS SELENA !!! #saysorrytome "and" Omfg #pleasesaysorrytoselena ".

At a time when many celebrities take up their words once the internet cries, Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana make fun of what haters think.

They (especially Gabbana) call them as they see them, shamelessly defending avant-garde women like Kate Moss and Victoria Beckham. The duo also sticks to their religious, political and cultural weapons – denouncing the gay adoption and cheerfully supporting Melania Trump – which sparked countless boycotts of the brand.

But all this negative publicity could be good for Dolce and Gabbana.

"They can afford to be bad boys," a former director of the brand told the post office. "They love to party and travel, and the bratty bad-boy thing works for the brand image."

Something works: Bloomberg estimates that the brand is worth more than $ 5 billion.

"They like to party and travel, and the nasty bratty thing works for the brand image"

The designers met in the 1970s while they were working in the same design studio in Milan. They have already said that the most flamboyant Gabbana had helped Dolce out of his shell. The two men started dating and formed their label in 1985.

As early as 1997, Dolce told The Independent: "Stefano is instinctive and impulsive. I always tell him, "Before you speak, count one, two, three." Stefano does not think, he just comes out of his mouth. "

According to the former director of Dolce, "Stefano is provocative, sting, then calm, like Domenico does the housework."

The brand exploded as a force of pop culture in the 1990s, when Madonna – then known as the most provocative woman in the world – wore Dolce & Gabbana at the premiere of her 1991 film "Truth or Dare". her 1993 World Tour Show Girlie. Suddenly, they were the definition of the sexy outfit of the 90s.

Since then, Dolce & Gabbana has become synonymous with luxurious beauty: lush, exuberant flowers, rich embroidery and brocade, ultra-feminine silhouettes (often with corsets) and black lace that wink at the eye. their Catholic origins.

This is the kind of provocative – but never vulgar – clothing that you imagine as an Italian siren like Sophia Loren did during her heyday in Hollywood. The fashion critic Vogue, Suzy Menkes, nicknamed the duo "masters of the art of mixing exceptional clothes with a lot of fun".

In 1999, Dolce and Gabbana appeared publicly as a couple, but they have long resisted labels. Last year, Gabbana told an Italian newspaper, "I do not want to be called gay … The word" gay "was coined by those who have to tag people.

He also angered the LGBTQ groups, whom he called "defense," adding, "I do not want to be protected by anyone."

Such groups certainly did not offer to defend it, or Dolce, in 2015, when the designers gave an interview to the Italian magazine Panorama. In this document, Dolce, a devout Catholic, said he would never be a parent because "you are born of a mother and a father – or at least that's what it should be." that children born through in vitro fertilization were "synthetic".

The duo's friend, Elton John, who has two sons with her husband David Furnish, has launched a Twitter campaign against the brand. "How dare you describe my beautiful children as" synthetic "," he tweeted. "I will never wear Dolce and Gabbana again. #BoycottDolceGabbana. "

In a few days, producer Ryan Murphy ("American Horror Story", "American Crime Story"), father of two with his husband David Miller, also swore to empty the designers.

Referring to the women he knew who used IVF, Murphy told The Hollywood Reporter, "I do not think they'll go to a Dolce & Gabbana store to buy clothes in the near future."

More than 10,000 people have signed an online petition calling Macy's and Debenhams to stop storing the brand. "It's been at least a year since I put Dolce on any of my clients," said The Post a Hollywood A-list stylist. "It has become a non-carpeting total red carpet."

That changed a few months later, when Dolce and Gabbana apologized. "I did some extensive research … I realized that my words were inappropriate, and I'm sorry," Dolce told Vogue.

It remains the only time they have retreated before controversial statements.

Recently, Gabbana has found a new outlet to express its opinions: social media.

In April, when Vogue Brasil posted a happy birthday tweet for Victoria Beckham, Gabbana responded with three depressed emoji. Although Beckham was once the creators' friend, the relationship seems to have deteriorated after Gabbana's 2014 comment that "she is a designer though. . . it's different. John Galliano is a designer. . . Alexander McQueen.

It seems that the duo has separated from Kate Moss, who played in Dolce & Gabbana commercials. In June, Catwalk Italia posted on Instagram a photo of the model in Saint Laurent, asking its subscribers if the look was a success or a failure. Taking Gabbana: a simple "no"

And at the beginning of this month, he posted the word "cheap" on a photo of the blogger of the Blonde Salad, Chiara Ferragni, in her Dior wedding dress.

"There is a lot of hostility towards women here," said a buyer from a large retailer who has worn the mark for years.

But these are not just women – they are people who follow huge social media. With 143 million followers, Gomez is one of the 10 most popular Instagram users. Beckham has 22.7 million faithful; Ferragni 15 million.

"He wants the provocative Instagram coat," said a well-placed insider who described Gabbana as "a terrible kid."

By continuing this momentum, Gabbana is not afraid to defend an oppressed, even if it is among the most prominent women in the world.

While many fashion designers, including Tom Ford and Marc Jacobs, publicly refused to dress Melania Trump, Gabbana kissed the first lady.

She has worn the mark several times over the past two years, including her official portrait and for the G7 summit in 2017, when she donned a $ 51,000 Dolce & Gabbana jacket. She also wore a custom lace dress – which designers have dubbed "Melania" – for February's Governors' Ball.

Gabbana regularly posts thank you messages under pictures of her on Instagram accounts such as @trumpadmin.daily.updates and @ melaniatrump.style, as well as multitudes of heart emoticons.
That too caused shouts of #BoycottDolceGabbana.

This summer, however, the designers had the final say in creating a $ 249 t-shirt that read "#Boycott Dolce & Gabbana" and filmed an ad featuring gorgeous young adults "protesting" against the brand.

But after all this noise and fury, this designer loving the leopard could he finally change his spots? A September 10 article on Gabbana's Instagram page reads: "Temporary Detoxification of Instagram".

Three days later, he simply posted "CLOSED".

Insiders suspect that Gabbana is just pausing until the end of Sunday's show in Milan, and that he will not be able to stop weighing something that tickles the devil on his shoulder.

As the former leader said, "He has always been a kid."