Daily Front Row

2011 September 22

D&G Shuttered By Dolce and Gabbana

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Stefano Gabbana and Domenico Dolce
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(MILAN) On the heels of Dolce & Gabbana’s Spring show in Milan this afternoon, the brand announced the demise of D&G as a separate entity, with plans to integrate the cheeky diffusion line into its main RTW. “We have a lot of new projects to start in the same way as many years ago when D&G was born,” said Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana in a statement, paralleling the current crux for their label as similar to “when we began our adventure: full of ideas.” The speculation began at last season’s MFW in March, where anonymous retailers from Italy to Russia to the Middle East scrutinized the rationale behind incorporating the design house’s primary moneymaker—raking in over $500 million annually—at the risk of “cannibalizing” the brand. D&G was launched in January 2004 with an unveiling of its men’s collection; the first presentation of its women’s wares occurred during MFW two months later. The first D&G store opened its doors in Milan in 1995, and unveiled a NYC outpost in Soho two years later, months after its Gotham runway debut with the S/S ’97 D&G show. 

D&G was produced by IT Holdings S.p.A's Ittiere from its inception until 2005, when the company opted to move operations in-house. Over the next six years, D&G expanded significantly, with its sleek $48 million HQ in Milan built in 2006 and a slew of showrooms, commercial offices and press facilities cropping up globally in the years that followed. The fate of D&G’s extensive and successful expansions into licensing, such as its flurry of popular fragrances produced by Procter & Gamble’s Global Prestige Products Division, remains to be seen under the overall incorporation of the line. 

“This is our new reality…And we are extremely happy about it…” Dolce and Gabbana remarked in today’s statement. 
ALEXANDRA ILYASHOV