Design duo Domenico Dolce (b. 1958, near Palermo, Sicily) and Stefano Gabbana (b.1962, Milan, Italy) are known for making “stars look like stars”. Their sexy styles are often to be seen on the likes of Isabella Rossellini, Demi Moore, Nicole Kidman and Madonna, for whom they created the now-famous “Kylie Minogue” tribute T-shirt. They also created the costumes for Madonna’s Girlie Show in 1993, as well as Whitney Houston’s 1999 tour. Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana have carved out more than just a niche in the fashion industry. Rather, the duo have built an empire based on what they see as dignified, yet raw and sensual fashion design.

Partners both in life and in business, the pair met while working as assistants in an atelier in Milan. Sharing a love of the baroque, they made their name together in 1985, when the organisers of the Milano Collezioni invited them to take part in a fashion show to launch “New Talents”. The following year, they presented their first independent women’s ready-to-wear show. Since then, they have introduced menswear and a line of signature fragrances, and opened shops in Italy, Japan, Hong Kong and, in 1999,in London (the London salon, designed by British architect David Chipperfield, is testament to the designers’ love of mixing their own Mediterranean spirit with English eccentricity).

In 1982, the first D&G studio was opened, but it wasn’t until 1985 until people took notice of the fashion house. At the Milano Collezioni fashion show in October of that year, Dolce & Gabbana were recognised as a promising new talent. A year later, the pair launched their first self-produced collection - real woman.

Since their first womenswear collection in 1985, Dolce & Gabbana have evolved into perhaps the definitive purveyors of sexy clothes for women who want to revel in their voluptuous femininity. They have taken items like satin corset bodies, black hold-up stockings, fishnets, and maribou-trimmed baby dolls out of their previous demimonde existence and put them together in such a way that they have become classy outfits for the new glamorous image of the 1990s, an escape from the pervasive unisex sporty styles.

The same key elements of sexiness mixed with traditional elements are applied to the menswear range, first shown in January 1990 and designed to complement Dolce & Gabbana’s women. Skilled Sicilian craftswomen and tailors, supervised by Dolce’s father, are employed to produce the internationally acclaimed menswear collections espousing a more laid-back, witty approach to the 1990s, after the brasher, more rigid styles of the previous decade. Muted shades of earthy browns are used alongside blacks with flashes of scarlet to produce modern-day versions of Sicilian bandits, with bandannas around their necks, and bikers in tattoo-covered leather jackets, lightened by the leggings used so widely by Dolce & Gabbana.

In October of 1988, Dolce & Gabbana signed an agreement with Dolce Saverio, a clothing company owned by Domenico Dolce’s family. This kick started the labels ready-to-wear range and gave them more freedom to create. The late 80s saw D&G clothes travel to Japan, where they showcased the label in Tokyo for the first time. Then came New York and the flood-gates to prosperity were opened. They opened a new showroom in New York (532 Broadway) and signed an agreement with the Genny group to produce the Complice range for four years.

Originally inspired by eclectic, thrift shop Bohemia, Dolce & Gabbana’s deeply coloured, animal prints have been described as “haute hippydom” taking inspiration in particular from Italy’s prestigious film history. “When we design it’s like a movie,” says Domenico Dolce. “We think of a story and we design the clothes to go with it.” They claim to be more concerned about creating the best, most flattering clothes than sparking trends, once admitting that they wouldn’t mind if their only contribution to fashion history was a black bra.

In 1993, Dolce & Gabbana designed 1500 costumes for Madonna’s world tour of “The Girlie Show”, which brought them even more recognition than they expected. Their trend-setting and sometimes risky designs earned them a cult following, ranging from huge celebrities to the suburban slobs. In the same year, “Dolce & Gabbana Parfum” fragrance was awarded the international prize as the best feminine fragrance of the year, by the Perfume Academy.

Fragrances are another significant category; the designers added new scents in the late 1990s to appeal to younger consumers, enhancing their already successful fragrance line. D&G Feminine and D&G Masculine were launched in 1999, first in Italy and then in the United States. Light Blue, for 25-to 40-year-olds, debuted in 2001.

In 1996, for the first time in history, the French award - “Oscar des Parfums” - is given to an Italian fragrance: Dolce & Gabbana Pour Homme. By 1998 the label was spinning serious money and in May of that year launched the new D&G Eyewear collection.

A year later, the D&G company came full circle, and eventually bought out its parent company by taking over 51 per cent of Dolce Saverio S.p.A., which would be renamed Dolce & Gabbana Industria S.p.A. Furthermore, the company exclusively designed clothes and accessories for Whitney Houston’s World Tour in 1999. D&G Time, producing designer watches, was launched in early 2000 and from here, well, you’d have to say the future is bright for the duo who just wouldn’t quit.

For Madonna’s “Music” album, Dolce & Gabbana were asked to go one step further than just dressing her and her ensemble and were asked to create an entire environment. It may sound daunting, but the Italian lads were up to the task and so transformed New York’s legendary Roseland Ballroom and London’s Brixton Academy into what will be forever known as cyber-ranches.”

D&G trademarks include underwear-as-outerwear (such as corsets and bra fastenings), gangster boss pinstripe suits, extravagantly printed and embroidered coats, and black. Meanwhile their fetish-meets-femininity collections are always backed by powerful ad campaigns, like the black-and-white La Sicilia, featuring model Marpessa photographed by Ferdinando Scianna in 1987. But fundamentally they are known for making women look, quite simply, devastatingly sexy. “They find their way out of any black dress, any buttoned-up blouse,” says Rossellini. “The first piece of theirs I wore was a white shirt, very chaste, but cut to make my breasts look as if they were bursting out of it.

Both Dolce & Gabbana’s menswear and womenswear lines have been international bestsellers. Influential and innovative, the clothes express a confident, sexy glamor that, however potent, never overpowers the wearer’s personality, making them one of the most important design forces to emerge from Italy in recent years. The partners have been working to expand their business outside of Italy and the rest of Europe, which together account for 70 percent of the company’s business as of 2001. In 1998 Dolce & Gabanna signed a deal with Onward Kashiyama to distribute their designs in Japan, and in 2001, they held their first showing outside Milan. Naturally, given the pair’s longtime ties to Hollywood, they chose the Los Angeles area as their venue.

Can the D&G boys do no wrong? It certainly seems that way. Their fashion shows are more often than not applauded than criticised, their frangrances known to be of the highest standard, their eyewear is individual and trend-setting, and their watches? Only time will tell.

Throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s, the designers maintained their focus on fun, sexy clothes for men and women, featuring animal prints, vibrant colors, high-tech and experimental fabrics, and innerwear-inspired items. They favor unusual combinations of styles and materials, dubbed “the corsets-and-pinstripes look” by Time International in March 1999. Dolce and Gabbana told Women’s Wear Daily in the fall of 1999 that their goal was to achieve a mood of “comfortable elegance,” an apt description of the sensibility typical of a Dolce & Gabbana collection.