Domenico Dolce & Stefano Gabbana celebrate in Milan this coming weekend the 20th anniversary of their men's collections (they began showing their women's collections 25 years ago) with a huge art exhibit in Milan's piazza della Scala and inside Milan's City Hall, historic Palazzo Marino. It's the designers' way to say thank you to their city (adoptive city in Dolce's case -- he was born in Sicily)
The big partyparty will take off tomorrow night (Juliette Binoche, Monica Bellucci, Roberto Bolle, Morgan Freeman and Opera Chic will be there) and on Sunday the two designers have chosen to open the Palazzo Marino exhibit to the public, free, all day long from 10AM to 7PM.
And earlier today in Palazzo Marino, Dolce & Gabbana introduced the exhibit -- that includes a series of installations with touch screens (and lots of iPads) that illustrate the duo's legacy of men's creations.
The event's soundtrack? Dolce & Gabbana are big opera fans and regular Scalagoers, "therefore it seemed only right to choose Verdi's music as the soundtrack", explained Gabbana to the media during the press conference.
It was Domenico Dolce, the shy man of the duo, who gave the most heartfelt endorsement of Verdi's genius: "Who doesn't get emotional at Scala? Who doesn't get emotional when listening to Verdi? Verdi is Italy's heart, his music's in our blood because our hearts beat to its rythm. As Italians, we're all Verdi's sons and daughters, all of us".
(Sadly, the French General Manager of la Scala, Stephane Lissner, a notorious fan of Wagner and French opera, would never be capable of such a sincere, moving tribute to Verdi's greatness -- how about Domenico Dolce for next Scala's "sovrintendente"?).
