ITALY: Two of Italy's most famous fashion houses, Dolce & Gabbana and Armani, start celebrating birthdays as they kick off the big-name shows at Milan fashion week

Dolce & Gabbana, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, showed their D&G diffusion line in a huge warehouse on the outskirts of Milan where they will also throw a huge birthday party later this week. D&G is usually a playground for brash baby dolls but it took a more feminine turn for next summer with dozens of dresses while lacy tops made even the occasional microskirt look girlie rather than trashy. As the music started, a long white curtain drew back to reveal a white set worthy of a magazine bridal shoot, all the models lounging on a white bed, a white chair, a white table,mostly dressed in -- white. These were not your traditional June brides, though. The white lace was there in abundance but it was so sheer and often clipped so tightly around the body that it left little to the imagination as to what lay beneath. All the more reason to buy D&G briefs and Brazilian bikini tops to look racy but not too obviously raunchy. At Armani, there was a girlie playfulness going on. "I have always worked in the fashion world hoping to make men and women more beautiful," said the designer, Giorgio Armani. "That's been my goal, not to have people talk about me because I've done something that nobody had ever done before." The neat jackets that have made Armani a staple of smart wardrobes around the world, were paired over silk skirts in lines of pastel colours reminiscent of 1980s ra-ra skirts. Some of the skirts were then matched with bermuda shorts beneath. For a more coquettish look, the jacket was reduced to a sheer chiffon shawl strung across the shoulders while Armani's primmer customers could choose baby doll dresses in ice blue or violet that shimmered with sequins.

ITN Source | September 30, 2005

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