Inside Dolce & Gabbana’s Extravagant Sardinian Fashion Show

Fifteen hundred locals opened the show with a procession that included wagons pulled by giant oxen, “tenore” polyphonic singers, and folklore groups including the Mamuthones, men clad in wooden masks, cloaks of goatskins, and 20 kilos of cowbells. These rather unsettling figures are said to predate Sardinia’s Christianity, with a tradition going back 2,000 years, yet appear in one small area of the island on key days in the Catholic calendar.

“For us to observe the smiles of this population parading in front of seven hundred customers from Brazil, Kazakhstan, Mexico, India, big businessmen like Jeff Bezos, stars like Theo James, Lucien Laviscount, Maluma—people who don’t even imagine what ancestral significance all this has—is something moving. It is our most sincere way to tell the love we have for the most genuine culture of Italy,” Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana explain.

The fashion show that followed brought the designers’ precious haute couture to the catwalk, but this time bearing the imprint of style gleaned from Sardinian culture. The peasant sense of style and decorum in Italy—something that underpinned Dolce & Gabbana’s identity from day one—is understood as both a moral form and an aesthetic demonstration. Double-breasted suits were swathed in silk ribbons; white shirts with lace and flounces had collars raised very high, up to the ears. Blouses, robes, and boleros were heavily embroidered.

“We have passed on the strong Spanish influences that have deeply marked this island. In Valencia,” says Stefano Gabbana, “I found a piece of fabric identical to what some ladies showed me, in their costumes, here in Sardinia.”

Metallic waist corsages, bodices of precious stones, huge capes, and ponchos were created with masses of virgin wool using an ancient Sardinian weaving technique, Pibiones, which translates from the Sardo dialect as “grapes.” It is a heavy fabric woven with pom-poms, a technique found in draperies, tapestries, and wedding bedspreads.

“But one of the pieces of the tradition that fascinated us the most and made us think that there were almost fashionable elements in the culture of Sardinian male costume, is a sort of skirt, worn over pants by Sardinian shepherds,” says Domenico Dolce. “It’s a very strong image that delivers an elaborate, but also practical, idea of the way of dressing.”