Milan Fashion Week: Boy meets girl on the Dolce & Gabbana runway

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

The fall Dolce & Gabbana collection was a retro 1980s riff on the boy-meets-girl theme. The problem is that there wasn’t anything surprising about the boys’ bankers-stripe suits with skinny short pants, or the jackets with cut-off sleeves, the glittery brogues and the pork-pie hats tipped backward, Annie Lennox-style.

The ‘girls’ were in dresses, either billowy silk chiffon star and music-note prints, or tight-fitting and shiny like disco balls.

From the last few seasons, it seemed like the Dolce & Gabbana collection was going in a more upscale, sophisticated direction. (With a huge emphasis on surface texture, natch, which is a major trend we’re seeing now for fall.) But this cute-bordering-on-camp collection was more in tune with the designers’ younger-minded secondary label, D&G. (Heels with piano-key designs, plastic star earrings, etc.)

Let’s put it this way, there was a photo of ‘80s Madonna tacked to the inspiration board backstage, but I can’t imagine the pop diva wearing any of this now.

-- Booth Moore in Milan, Italy

PHOTOS: Dolce & Gabbana fall-winter 2011 runway collection photo gallery