I’m not normally a follower of haute couture: the images of elaborate dresses that I can’t imagine anyone actually wearing leave me thinking of the Raymond Chandler tag “as elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you can find outside an advertising agency” (Chandler was referring to the game of chess, but we all have our own bugbears). So when someone told me that the one unmissable exhibition in Paris was the “Dolce&Gabbana: Du Cœur à la Main” show at the Grand Palais, I was dubious in the extreme.
Still, our informant was quite firm on the matter, so I took my heart in my hands and booked our tickets (which were rarer than hen’s teeth and only available for early mornings or very late nights). And thank goodness I did, because I left the exhibition with my mind completely blown, with a completely fresh understanding of what this kind of fashion can mean.
On the one hand, it’s true to say that the vast majority of what was on show was indeed clothing, in the sense that it’s in the form of sets of garments that people can wear. However, that turns out to be almost incidental: what Domenico Dolce et Stefano Gabbana are displaying in the “Alta Moda” in this exhibition is an array of works of art in different media, which happen to be in the shape that you can drape over a mannequin (or, presumably, the occasional supermodel or super-rich real person). And the beauty and craftsmanship embodied in those works of art is simply mind-boggling.
Apart from the obvious needlework and pleating, the art/craft forms in use include tapestry (both woven and cross-stitch), printing, painting, metalwork and even glass-making. Dolce&Gabbana seem to be experts (or have experts on tap, anyway) on every one. The exhibition is mostly of the finished products, but it’s sprinkled with video of the artisans at work, so you can marvel at the skills on display as well as goggle at the garments that result.
It helps that Dolce and Gabbana evidently share two obsessions of mine: opera and Sicily. You’re assaulted by everyone’s favourite opera highlights (Pavarotti singing Nessun dorma, Callas singing Casta diva, you get the idea) as soon as you’re in the exhibition, and it largely continues that way – but what really blew me away was some of the wearable versions of the posters for various famous premières at La Scala.
Two rooms were devoted to Sicily. The first was a modest antechamber with only a few garments but walls filled of black-and-white reportage photos of the island. That opened up into the brightest sunniest vista I’ve ever seen indoors: a blaze of Sicilian sunlight created by the boldest of colours. The themes I loved were the stories from Orlando Furioso – peerless knights, fair damsels, evil sorceresses and so on – that you’ll find in Sicilian puppet theatre, complete with a full size travelling cart that the puppeteers would have used to tour their show from village to village. And the brightness was applied to homewares as well as garments, with Smeg fridges as you’ve never seen them. (You could buy a gorgeously bedecked espresso pot if you wanted – not much else was on sale).
But back to that question that bothered me about coming to this show in the first place: would anyone really wear this stuff? And why? Are we just at a kind of massive craft fair where all the goods on show just happen to be people-shaped, or is this just providing a vehicle for oligarchs’ fantasies of what their wives and girlfriends should wear? I’ve rationalised a kinder answer – I don’t really know, of course – which is to consider professionals where the way you look really is a key part of the product (I’m thinking Lady Gaga or Margot Robbie, let alone models like Agel Akol or Bella Hadid). In that category, if you’re going out to a big occasion where you know the paparazzi will be out in force, then wearing something utterly individual and striking isn’t just a matter of vanity or self-indulgence, it’s simply good business. Even if you feel like you’re walking around in something that should really be in a museum. Like the Grand Palais.
By the time I get this posted, you’ll missed the Paris version of this show, but the exhibition will then be travelling to other cities “on a world tour”. Even for a non-fashion-lover like me, I think it’s worth the trip.
Polything 