It’s been called a love letter to Italy and a grand tour through the nation’s history and culture. The Dolce&Gabbana fashion exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in Miami’s Design District is all that – and more.
“From the Heart to the Hands” is an exuberant paean to beauty, excess, detail, ritual and creativity that is deeply intentional. Taken together, says curator Florence Muller, the 300 handmade garments are an expression of passion by designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, and the artisans that transform their designs into artworks for human bodies.
The intricacy is overwhelming, and it’s no wonder that some people returned again and again to a trio of previous showings in Milan, Paris and Rome. “You need hours to look at all the detail,” explains Muller. The fashion house decided on Miami for its U.S. tour launch because of its multiculturalism and rich Latin roots, explains Muller; when the Miami show closes in June it will go on to a handful of other U.S. cities not yet announced.
“For the team — and Dominico in particular – the idea of launching in Miami really resonated,” says Alex Gartenfeld, the ICA’s artistic director. The availability of ICA’s wing recently acquired from the now-closed de la Cruz Collection provided a generous, adaptable space.
“We’re very enthusiastic about the exhibition and the level of detail. The connections between art and history are very clear.” Audience response since the Feb. 5 opening has been very positive, according to Gartenfeld. The show runs through Sunday, June 14.
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Inside the Alta Moda Collections: Handmade Couture at Its Finest
Each garment was crafted by hand as part of Dolce&Gabbana’s Alta Moda (haute couture) collections for women, men and jewelry: a floor-length jacket embossed with elaborate silk appliqués of cherubs, petals and twining leaves; a dress trimmed in folkloric patterns dotted with sequins over a petticoat inspired by tablecloths crafted in Puglia; a gentleman’s cape painstakingly embroidered with an elaborate scene of Venice’s Grand Canal; religious vestments glittering with sequins; lacy wedding dresses conveying the ethereal nature of union; and eight-inch-high platform sandals encrusted with jewels.
For Miami fashionistas and aficionados, the show is a coup. Close inspection of Dolce&Gabbana’s one-of-a-kind pieces is normally reserved for a few hundred wealthy “collectors’’ invited to private presentations. In the exhibition foyer, videos offer a peek at dramatically staged showings at the Roman Forum, in Venice’s Doge’s Palace and Milan’s La Scala. They provide context, explaining how each annual show is held in a different distinctive corner of the country, showcasing its traditions and craftsmen. The videos also testify to Italy’s reverence for the design house, giving it access to palaces and monuments normally closed to commercial activity.
That reverence derives from Dolce&Gabbana’s investment in promoting and preserving Italy’s culture and artisanal traditions. Unlike some legendary designer brands – think Valentino, Dior, St. Laurent – that began as couture workshops for the discerning and wealthy, Dolce & Gabbana launched in 1985 as a ready-to-wear brand focused on distinctly feminine styling before expanding into menswear, beachwear, perfumes, makeup.
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Madonna picked up the mantle – or in this case, a gemstone-studded bustier – collaborating with the firm for her Girlie Show world tour. Beyonce, Mary J. Blige and the late Whitney Houston soon followed.
In 2011 the firm closed its D&G brand aimed at younger consumers to add Alta Moda collections of hand-made garments that support in-house studios and a school for training future generations. The first Alta Moda collection was shown in 2012 in Taormina, Sicily.
Like the video wall, the exhibition’s first full installation is a preview of splendor to come. Mannequins dressed in appliqued gowns, brocade jackets, tunics of crocheted gold and an elaborately sequined floral dress are staggered on a mirrored stage beneath a mirrored ceiling.
The 20-foot walls are hung salon-style with gilt frames surrounding oil paintings flirting at once with modernism and Renaissance styles. Most are self-portraits of the artist, Anh Duong, a model who was once synonymous with designer Christian Lacroix.
There are other familiar faces here, most notably Naomi Campbell in a bold feathered gown that would wow even Cinderella. And just around the next corner appears the dress itself, with its giant organza skirt covered in feathers that, we’re assured, are common and not endangered.
The following dozen rooms and hallways are Dolce&Gabbana’s homage to Italy’s artisanal excellence. In one, cross-stitched gowns and sable-collared coats bear familiar depictions of madonnas by Botticelli and Raphael Titian’s Bacchus, Leonardo da Vinci’s “Unknown Woman.”
Gold lace demurely veils a woman’s face beneath a crown-like headpiece. Pearls and portraiture and pearls are combined in headdresses; a gentleman’s glove is adorned with filigree and tourmalines. Around them all, cherubs and gods dance among the clouds in a wall projection of Carracci’s “Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne.”
Each piece is one of a kind,” says Muller, an art and fashion historian who spent three years working with the designers to create the exhibition. “You can feel the hours that go into it.”
Immersive Set Design: Murano Glass, Baroque Stucco and Ancient Columns
So are the sets that showcase the clothes. Decorative floors, delicate chandeliers – Murano of course – and ancient columns from the designers’ personal collection travel with the show. The result is a museum-quality immersion. Mannequins wearing garments inspired by Greek mythology appear amid a columned temple.
The adjacent chamber is in glittering gold tiles and features designs that are themselves mosaics of jewels, silks, sequins and even mink. “ (One single coat depicting Biblical scenes of encrusted beads took five artisans a full seven months to complete.) The firm does not reveal the price of its couture.
Other rooms honor the Italian art of glass, with glass and Lucite-beaded garments in a maze of mirrors and delicate chandeliers, and baroque stucco, with jackets and dresses ingenuously appliqued with giant silk cherubs. There are nods to ancient Rome and a compelling enclave devoted to Sardian inspiration.
Another exhibit honors Italian film, with the lens centered on the 1963 film “The Leopard” featuring Burt Lancaster and Claudia Cardinale. Film clips play silently in windows throughout the room, and even without words guests can sense the tension between old aristocracy and the rising influence of the merchant class. In Italy, and in D&G’s world, tradition and future are forever entwined in a delicate dance.
The Sicilian room exudes joy, with bright tile floors, painted walls and even refrigerators adorned with folkloric scenes; all were made by Sicilian craftspeople, as was a wooden transport wagon that was used to bring guests to its 2017 fashion presentation in Palmero.
A purse is decorated with cannoli and other sweets executed in ceramic sits beneath a glass vitrine; a second holds impossibly high shoes with heels made from ceramic folkloric dolls. Voluminous dresses decorated with heraldic symbols and folk scenes overflow their couches. “You can’t help but smile,” says a guard-host in the room. “I’m lucky to be in here.”
Devotion and Catholic Symbolism in Dolce&Gabbana’s Designs
Muller’s favorite room, “Devotion,” is set behind a golden grill, gates open to a chapel centered by a gold sacred heart above an altar. Within, a woman with bowed head is draped in a long lace mantle elaborately appliqued with gold flowers and feathers; her attendees are clad in black and gold, their faces veiled in black. The explanation reads, “A symbol of life and love, in this exhibition the heart reminds us that creativity cannot happen without a sense of giving oneself, fully, to artistic enterprise…The sensation of overwhelming splendor … produces a form of mystic fervor.”
Ecclesiastical themes throughout the show culminate in a series of men’s tunics – a new addition to the show following Dolce&Gabbana’s 2025 presentation processional on Rome’s Aelian Bridge. A canonical-style coat is encrusted with beads, a cardinal’s cape shot with silver threads. A mitred-bishop figure glows with jewels, gold and pearls.
The question is inevitable: How does the Catholic Church view these overt references? In a conversation hosted by the Italian Cultural Institute in Miami in conjunction with the Miami opening, Monsignor Alberto Rocca of Milan’s Pinocoteca Ambrosiano, applauded D&G’s use of the Catholic symbols so integral to Italian culture. “They are meant to inspire admiration and devotion. There is no sign of mockery but a sense of belief. (D&G’s presentations) are never vulgar or blasphemous. When you are astonished by the beauty, you have a spiritual experience.”
As the exhibition winds to a close, you finally get a glimpse behind the glory. Unadorned corsets, half-tailored jackets and sketches of gowns to come are set in a recreation of D&G’s atelier, complete with antique furniture from one of its actual workshops. There are cabinets filled with buttons, trays of trimmings, bolts of old fabric rescued from defunct fashion houses. Tailor’s dummies are shaped with extra padding in just the same places as a well-fed patron. Such one-of-a-kind works take dedication not just by the designers but by an entire team, putting to rest the question of whether fashion is art.
The finale is, fittingly, D&G’s tribute to Puccini and Verdi and the grand pageant that is Italian opera. Arias sweep silk and jeweled capes dedicated to “Turandot,” “Aida,” “Madama Butterfly” and gowns inspired by heroines, kings and princesses stolen into captivity.
Regardless of the opera, the ending is inevitably heartbreak and death. But in Dolce&Gabbana’s hands, the tale is transformed from tragedy to triumph. So may all stories end.
WHAT: “From the Heart to the Hands: Dolce&Gabbana”
WHERE: Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA)-Miami, 61 NE 41st St., Miami
WHEN: 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., Sunday to Wednesday, 10 a.m. to 10:30 p.m., Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
COST: $26-$28
INFORMATION: 305-901-5272 and miami.dolcegabbanaexhibition.com/
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