D&G Clothing designers

D&G Clothing designers

Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana first met in Milan in 1980, while working as assistants in an atelier. Dolce , who studied fashion design and worked for his family's small clothing factory, grew up in a small Sicilian village; Gabbana , a trained graphic designer, grew up in Milan. They had an immediate creative connection and went into business together two years later. Now overseeing what has become a tru fashion empire.

D&G Fashion

Dolce & Gabbana's aesthetic is anything but coy: They will gleefully squeeze as much excess as is humanly possible into each show-stopping piece, whether a jacket, dress, or suit. " Dolce & Gabbana aren't subtle," says Andrew Bolton, associate curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute. "They design blatant statements. Yet they also have a huge sense of irony and whimsy." After their first collection launched to international acclaim in 1986, the brand soon expanded to knitwear, beachwear, lingerie and accessories; today, they have two main clothing lines—the couture Dolce & Gabbana and the younger, more informal D&G . Earning remarkable financial success (despite the prevalence of fraudulent D&G merchandise), the designers' way with a corset has become emblematic of their love of va-va-voom dressing—and their awesome tailoring talents.