Dolce & Gabanna S/S 2015 Bullfighters Collection

The well-known notes of the Paso Doble accompanied a decidedly Spanish influenced Dolce&Gabbana Spring Summer 2015 collection at the Metropol in Milan today. The collection, a celebration of the Mediterranean Basin culture, with majolica, torero inspired outfits, passionate red suits, and flamenco style polka dots, was a departure from the highly sartorial norm for Dolce&Gabbana. The sportswear focus was loud and unabashed, just like the prints and the crystalline notes of the iberic marches.

The materials used in the collection, in keeping with Dolce&Gabbana’s ironic take on fashion were varied, from terry cloth cotton to Mikado and even double duchess silk, a fabric that is a favourite from the Alta Moda Collections.

The sportswear portion of the collection, which consisted in the vast majority of the looks, took its inspiration from the arena, this season the Greek amphitheatre and the Colosseum, became the Corrida, where the toreros, the gladiators of the Iberian peninsula, took to the stage greeted by fans and blood red carnations.

Passementerie creates exquisitely intricate designs on mikado, shantung silk and brocade sweat shirts and cropped track pants- all backed in terry cloth. Of particular notice, the black and white hooded sweatshirt with the matching trousers.

The same passementerie adorns tailored jackets, with the new scooped waist coat, another reference to the torero’s extravagant outfits, and wool twill trousers. The cut of the suits is figure emphasizing, single breasted, to be worn open over the waistcoats, with tapered trousers, cut just at the ankle.  The shirts have an extravagant collar, to further emphasize the scoop of the waistcoat and the thin tie, as well as the Latino style.

Prints are without a doubt eye catching, ranging from bulls, the symbol of Spain, as well as majolicas, of similar style to the well loved and well known Sicilian ones that have long inspired Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana’s creativity.

Jewellery makes a grand return, jewellery worn as an amulet for good luck, both of religious meaning like Madonnas, sacred hearts and crosses, or of a more superstitious nature, like effigies of bulls. Another reference to the uniformity of the Mediterranean culture.

The sportswear focus of the collection is increasingly evident in the high quantity of sneakers that treaded the red velvet catwalk. Printed, embroidered with passementerie, fashioned out of brocade, the hightop sneakers were treated with a dignity rarely bestowed to sportswear.

It is this dignity, that of the Spanish culture, the princely past of the country, the highly religious traditions which inspired Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana to delve into this Italian neighbour, with its influences of our home peninsula and in particular Sicily, with the similarities of the Mediterranean culture, and the passion of the Latino man.

To the notes of the Prelude of Bizet’s Carmen, a hoard of red suits descended upon the Metropol, red like the blood that pumps in our veins, red, like the fire that burns with passion, red like the magma which powers the heart if the earth, red, the colour which underpins the inspiration of the collection.