Show Report
The colour was so eye-scorchingly bright my pupils only began focussing again at about look 15.
What is D&G all about? Youth - with all its rawness, brashness, colour and energy. Stefano Gabbana and Domenico Dolce never forget that, and while they may slant the suiting of their mainline ever-upwards in terms of price and sophistication, they're always going to keep the D&G second line cheap and cheerful.
Those were certainly the words that leapt to mind at the A/W 2011 D&G show, with a blast of pop pap perforating eardrums and a slew of teenage models tumbling down the catwalk. What were they wearing? One can't be certain, entirely - the colour was so eye-scorchingly bright my pupils only began focussing again at about look 15. Certainly there were trainers - big, big high-top sneakers that seem to have been cross-bred with moon-boots. There was plenty of fur, lining nylon parkas and the hoods of polyester down-coats which were themselves more often than not emblazoned with more colour. Prints oscillated around popular culture - Mickey Mouse and Coca-Cola, the most pop logo of them all, sometime printed, sometimes intarsia-knitted into long sweaters with slouchy pockets, thrown over jeans that were skin-tight at the ankle but sagging somewhat around the crotch. A couple of suits bounded out, worn by models as giddy as newborn rabbits with comedy headphones dangling around their necks, and following the same lines, their collars 'popped' (as I believe the kids call it) and revealing more of those prints under the lapels.
At the end, the models marched out again in primary-coloured, primary-school jeans with torso-hugging cartoon t-shirts, hair greased back, chins stuck out, ready for a night on the tiles at a provincial Italian gay club in Rimini. Eyes still smarting and ears throbbing from the sensory onslaught, we stumble out. And within five minutes I have seen thiry young Milanese men sporting exactly the same look. I suppose that's who the D&G customer really is. Eurotrash-y, but it does the job.
