Dolce & Gabbana, Bally and Bottega Veneta present on day four of Milan Fashion Week

At a press conference ahead of the autumn/winter 2023 show, designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana explained that for their new collection, they would strip away all unnecessary frippery and return to the DNA of Dolce & Gabbana.

"We love women," explained Gabbana. "All women. Their beauty, their sensuality. This is about bringing that back."

The second season in collaboration with Kim Kardashian Dolce explained that it was her love of vintage Dolce & Gabbana that had triggered the reset.

"Kim and her family went to the archives, and we found all of these pieces, and [thought], 'Why don't we revisit these?' Once we had finished the collection, we realised it looks very like the 1992 collection, so we have gone full circle.”

Dolce and Gabbana have the luxury of years of experience and have clearly taken stock, looking back at what they have done since founding the brand in 1985. And what a back catalogue it is. During the show, looks were presented with dates stitched on, the date of the original design that inspired the new outfit.

The thinking behind the collection, Dolce explained, was to offer an antidote to the rush and heat of social media. “We are not against social media, but what it presents, it isn't real. We want to strip that away, and return to real women,” he said.

The irony, of course, is that much of Kardashian’s career has been fuelled by social media.

An ode to what Dolce described as the "eternal beauty" of women, the collection featured only four colours — white, red, gold and black — as the brand focused on celebrating the sensuality of women.

There were sheer, ruched looks, worn over lingerie, while more transparency appeared via classic tailoring, such as a pair of high-waisted trousers, a jacket cut from sheer chiffon, lean coats and a cropped bolero jacket over stove pipe trousers.

Elsewhere, the metallic looks of the autumn/winter 2007 collection were resurrected as a mid-length shimmery gold dress, paired with a wide, metallic corset belt and as a belted trench coat. Lace appeared in many guises, most notably as a slinky pencil skirt.

The skill in this offering is not that it showcases something new, but rather that it is doubling down on what has gone before. With vintage 1990s and 2000s Dolce & Gabbana in high demand around the world, with Kardashian herself a serious collector, the designer duo have realised that a whole new generation of women want what the brand does so well — an Italian take on sensuality.

Bally

At the Bally show — held in the spectacular space of the 15th century residence, Casa Atellani — the audience was shoehorned in three-deep to try and catch a glimpse of the clothes.

In the mixed-gender show, men wore buttery soft leather safari shirts in chocolate or lavender, which carried an air of Yves Saint Laurent, and a single-breasted velvet suit in dove grey, worn with a mauve scarf. Another model wore a rose polo neck under a grey tweed jacket.

For women, it was a little punchier, with several looks in shades of deep orange, as coats and jackets, paired with blasts of tangerine as over-the-knee boots, which echoed the hey-day of Tom Ford. There were also leather shirts as belted dresses and brass-buttoned jackets with a vaguely 1970s air. As only his second season at the helm of Bally, already Rhuigi Villasenor is making his mark, embracing the past glory days of the house, now updated for a new audience.

Bottega Veneta

At Bottega Veneta, creative director Matthieu Blazy seemed to focus on surfaces and the practical matter of how clothes move when worn.

As the head of the famous leather house, he channelled that knowledge into making over-the-knee boots, bags and gloves out of its famous woven intrecciato. More leather appeared as men's shirts, trousers and coats, and for women as an oxblood swing top and skirt, and as moss-green dress with intriguing volume around the hips.

For men there were also plenty of boxy suits and even boxier coats, including a shaggy piece in the colour of ripe corn. There was even a parade of four kandura-style looks, first in shirting, then in soft grey wool, and then knitted in red and cream.

For women, dresses came in thick tweed with multi-panelled skirts giving a beautiful movement to the walk, or in leather, with volume caught on one hip. Crocheted tops that looked as though they were crafted from petals of wool were teamed with hobble skirts with fringing cut into chevrons. As a counter point to this heaviness, Blazy also offered a fragile mint green silk top and skirt edged in lace. Bottega Veneta's was a genuinely interesting collection, filled with clever contrasts that seems to explore wearability.

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