Dolce & Gabbana sure knows how to whip up an Instagram frenzy. Running an hour behind schedule for its fall/winter 2018 show, named 'Fashion Devotion,' at Milan Fashion Week on Sunday, when the first pieces finally came onto the catwalk, every phone in the house lit up. But there were no models to be seen. In their place? Drones. The flying tech emerged from Dolce & Gabbana's 'gates of heaven' (a fitting set for the collection's religious message) showcasing a new range of top-handled chain-detailed bags in red, black, and white with jewel-encrusted heart clasps.
Normality resumed once the levitating robots made their way down the runway, with the collection's devout theme becoming clear as the first model stepped out. Intricate black lace veils and papal hats covered models' heads, while sumptuous brocade dresses and regal purple velvet sweatshirts read 'Fashion Sinner,' 'Fashion is Beautiful,' and 'Royal Love.' "We’re playing with our religion," Stefano Gabbana told Vogue before the show, "but our religion is also fashion.”
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With no religious iconography left unexplored, from clerical collars turned into shirt detailing and ornate crosses reimagined as extravagant earrings, to cherubs embroidered onto skirts and socks, the show was a love letter to fashion expressed via archetypal spiritual and reverent symbols. “It’s our life,” Domenico Dolce said of fashion. “The first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning is to make something.”
The show comes just a few months before this year's Met Gala, which, on the first Monday of May, will explore religion further. The theme, Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination, will delve into the complex relationship between fashion's leading creative directors, devotion, and divinity. No doubt celebrity attendees will mine the Italian brand's fall collection for their looks.