From the Heart to the Hands: Dolce&Gabbana Opens its Immersive Exhibition in Paris

Paris, the undisputed home of haute couture. While the city’s haute couture calendar unfolds, Dolce&Gabbana has been presenting its unique take on haute couture since 2012 through its Alta Moda collection for women and Alta Sartoria collection for men. Separate from the ready-to-wear collections unveiled twice a year at the Metropol in Porta Venezia, Milan, these Alta Moda and Alta Sartoria creations are dedicated to crafting dresses and suits that bring color to the lives of individual clients around the world. It’s more than just a fashion show.

At Dolce&Gabbana’s Alta Moda and Alta Sartoria, each showcase is held in a historically significant building or archaeological site in Italy that aligns with the chosen theme. Clients who admire and order the creations are invited from across the globe, and following the shows, extravagant banquets are hosted to celebrate and entertain the guests. These events are true multi-day festivals of fashion and culture.

Despite controversies surrounding the two Italian designers in the past—stemming from remarks that were criticized as racially insensitive or politically right-leaning—their skills and sense as couturiers and tailors continue to be widely praised.

The exhibition “From the Heart to the Hands”, running from January 10 to March 31, 2025, at the Grand Palais in Paris, serves as a declaration of the designers’ love for Italian culture, which has been their muse, inspiration, and foundation throughout their careers. It offers a journey through their unparalleled creative process, tracing the path from the birth of ideas in the heart to their realization through meticulous craftsmanship by hand. Previously held at the Palazzo Reale in Milan, the exhibition received critical acclaim and saw every ticket sold out during its run.

Spread across 1,200 square meters of the newly refurbished Grand Palais, the exhibit showcases over 200 looks from the company’s Alta Moda and Alta Sartoria collections and 300 handmade accessories, as well as objects like Sicilian ceramics. It includes 10 themed rooms that delve into the artistic roots of Dolce&Gabbana’s work. The exhibition was curated by Florence Müller, who also curated the highly acclaimed “Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams” exhibitions at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris (2017) and the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (2022). In preparation for this role, Müller first visited the atelier where Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana bring their creations to life.

There, she witnessed the almost magical process of crafting garments using fabrics and materials of various colors and textures. The transformation of the designers’ ideas and visions into tangible masterpieces is achieved through the unwavering skills and meticulous craftsmanship of individual artisans.

She carefully observed the atelier to illuminate the process and thought behind Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana’s ideas. Each Alta Moda and Alta Sartoria collection is themed around Italian culture and historical motifs, with the designers reinterpreting Italy’s rich cultural and historical heritage. In this exhibition, each display booth serves as an homage to Italian culture and history, drawing inspiration from Dolce&Gabbana’s past collections.

Through the exhibition, which celebrates Italy’s cultural richness, she emphasizes that the past never truly dies—it can live again through Alta Moda. On the opening day of the exhibition, she invited visitors to step into the designers’ world, describing it as “a space where imagination, magic, legend, and reality intersect.”

The exhibition begins with digital artworks created by contemporary visual artists. As visitors proceed into the Grand Palais’ main floor, they encounter ten themed rooms exploring the foundations of the fashion house.

The first room, titled “Handmade,” highlights the essence of the brand: the craftsmanship of Italian artisans across fields such as embroidery, leatherwork, and beadwork. These skills have been cultivated over centuries in various regions of Italy, from the north to the south of the peninsula.

Inspired by the Grand Tour, an 18th-century journey undertaken by European aristocrats to immerse themselves in Italy’s culture and art, the room brings this historical voyage to life through the artisans’ work. Vibrant landscapes and cultural symbols such as the Trulli of Alberobello, Palazzo Vecchio and the Duomo in Florence, Piazza San Marco in Venice, and the carnivals of different Italian regions are depicted through embroidery, appliqué, lace, and beadwork. Each piece shines as wearable art, capturing the spirit and beauty of Italian heritage.

The paintings adorning the walls of the room were created by Anh Duong, an artist and actress who began her artistic career in New York in 1988. Known for her exploration of self-portraiture, Duong captures both fantastical worlds and the intimate moments of her daily life through her works.

Her self-portrait series, created between 2012 and 2024, features herself wearing Dolce&Gabbana’s Alta Moda collections. These portraits evoke the grandeur of 18th-century aristocratic portraits, resembling nobles embarking on the Grand Tour.

Spread across three floors, the exhibition features themed rooms that delve into various facets of Dolce&Gabbana’s artistry. Highlights include a homage to the film The Leopard (Le Guépard), an eternal source of inspiration for the designers, and a meticulously recreated atelier space that immerses visitors in the world of their creative process.

Through immersive installations and specially commissioned digital art pieces, the exhibition explores the many dimensions of the Dolce&Gabbana aesthetic. Visitors are guided through themes like visual art, architecture, music, Italian traditions, theater, and La Dolce Vita (“The Sweet Life”), all in dialogue with the brand’s creations.

The final space, The Art and Craft of Glassworking, celebrates Venetian glass, a craft deeply admired by the designers. This room features dazzling dresses incorporating elements of Venetian glass, with mirror-like fabrics and metallic floral bijoux that shimmer brilliantly. The glasswork was created by Barovier & Toso, a historic glassmaking workshop in Venice whose origins date back to 1295. Traditionally used for interior decor and tableware, glass is transformed by Dolce&Gabbana into wearable art. Each piece of glass is painstakingly hand-sewn by artisans in a process that exemplifies the brand’s commitment to achieving unparalleled beauty, regardless of the effort or cost. The exhibition serves as an invitation to embark on a mesmerizing journey through the designers’ creative process, from dreamlike sketches to meticulously crafted realities.

These works evoked the daunting task of creating them, but the exhibition created the style called Camp, which means a deliberate provocation, also made me think about the definition of “supreme luxury” in modern times, as well as the boundary between art and fashion. “I found this exhibition quite controversial,” said Yulia Harfouch, co-owner and editor-in-chief of HD FASHION TV. “The exaggeration bordering on grotesque, the vulgarity, the aestheticism, and the paradoxical blend of playfulness and seriousness all suggest a new ‘camp’ aesthetic, which I find challenging to grasp. Still I believe this effort is worthwhile though—it’s designed to attract attention, preserve jobs, and pass on knowledge and heritage to the next generation.” At least we hope so.

Courtesy: Dolce&Gabbana

Text: Elie Inoue