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Dolce & Gabbana, New Latin Classics For Today

Dolce & Gabbana, the label that first gave us underwear as outerwear and defined the very concept of sexy fashion in the nineties went back to their roots this season in Milan, though updating their classics with a new dose of luscious Latino style.

The whole risqué restoration in their Spring 2010 women’s ready-to-wear collection, shown on Sunday, Sept. 27, was apparent in the finale, when models strutted out in leotards, bras and panties, the very apparel they wore under the looks during the show in what will be the defining image of this Milan season.

Staged in the house’s custom-made showspace done up like a old-fashioned movie sound set, the show rocked from the opening look. With French café tunes on the soundtrack, there was a Parisian air to the show, a tad Coco Gabbana, especially when the action opened with several lasses in black men’s suits with jodhpurs, recalling the recent film hagiographies on Chanel’s life. But the compass swung south as the show progressed, with lots of lacy lingerie dresses, semi-sheer lace tops and floral patterned silk looks, i.e., a small regiment of Surrealist countesses.

On Thursday, Sept. 24, the design duo went way west with a country and western moment in their more youthful collection, D&G. On the chuck wagon that was their runway, Dolce and Gabbana paraded cowgirls rustling in faded denim ranch hand’s shirts, holey mannish jeans, t-shirts featuring images of ten gallon hats, Doc Holliday pinstripe suits and flouncing Johnny Guitar layered denim dresses.

Bandanas around their necks, cowboy boots with inlay on their feet and fringed suede jackets around their bodies, you sort of expected one of the models to eventually appear on a Palomino horse.

D&G continues to stand out compared to other diffusion labels in Milan, or Paris, because where most designers take a scatter shot to their second line, Dolce and Gabbana always pick a unique and clear theme and stick to it through their whole collection, packing plenty of saucy images into the show. So, even though this show contained 63 looks, very long by current industry standards, the last images were all cattle baron mistresses in frilly chiffon barn dance skirts with chambray shirts.

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