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Dolce & Gabbana launches home interiors line, opens two ad hoc stores in Milan
After a soft launch last September in Venice, during the Alta Moda collection show, Dolce & Gabbana has made an emphatic entrance into the home interiors segment by opening in the heart of Milan the first two stores dedicated to its home decoration products. The project is ambitious: it includes imminent openings in the USA and France, and features a home accessories, tableware and home linen line designed internally, and a furniture line licensed to the Luxury Living Group (LLG).
Dolce & Gabbana’s home line is inspired by Sicilian interiors style - Dolce & Gabbana
The luxury label led by Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana has chosen a highly distinctive, original style for a range that is 100% made in Italy, featuring its signature Mediterranean codes, with bright colours galore and lavish decorations.
“The initial feed-back is positive, it's a highly distinctive collection, with a unique design language that isn’t to be found among current home interiors lines,” said Andrea Gentilini, CEO of LLG. The line’s joyous, colourful aesthetic is emphasised by the stores’ neutral design, with interiors in black, white and grey, and floors in Basaltina lava stone.
The two collections (home decoration and furniture) feature the same palette and motifs, articulated in four well-defined themes: leopard, zebra, Mediterranean blue and Sicilian cart. The latter, inspired by the decorations of traditional Sicilian painted carts, with exuberant patterns in vibrant colours like vermilion, citrus yellow and royal blue, is a theme that Dolce & Gabbana had developed in 2016 for a collaboration with high-end Italian home appliances brand Smeg, with which the label created a range of kitchen appliances and utensils, from fridges to toasters and kettles.
Dolce & Gabbana's first home interiors store, directly managed by the label, is located at 7 Corso Venezia, in Milan’s chic San Babila district. The store was previously home to the childrenswear and women's ready-to-wear lines, which have moved to the label’s other stores in the city, in via Montenapoleone and via della Spiga 2.
The new store extends over 1,200 m2 on two levels, and showcases home and furniture accessories (candles, vases, platters etc.) and other home decoration articles, like table ware, cushions in duchess twill, printed quilts, home linen, rugs, small items of furniture in lacquered wood and more.
The second store is located nearby, at 23 via Durini, and is managed by LLG. It extends over 1,000 m2 on three levels and is decorated in grey and black, in a style identical to that of the Corso Venezia store. A huge chandelier has pride of place in the second store, home to the label’s furniture collections, including sofas, pouffes, tables and other sumptuous items of furniture, mirroring exactly the same themes as the accessories line.
LLG’s portfolio includes home decoration lines by Versace, Trussardi, Bentley and Bugatti, in addition to the group’s own, brand-new line Luxence. The group has signed a 13-year licence deal with Dolce & Gabbana that goes beyond a mere licensing partnership, as Gentilini explained to FashionNetwork.com. “We work on everything with Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana. They are both passionate about design and extremely knowledgeable, always involved and very demanding. Technically, this collection has been a challenge, and has led us to innovate in our manufacturing process.”
Dolce & Gabbana's home decoration range in the Corso Venezia store - Dolce & Gabbana
To reproduce on tables the patterns in Mediterranean blue and other colours, LLG has had to adopt special techniques. Equally, it used typical fashion industry methods to correctly calibrate the prints on each textile product, and the same for the inner decorations in many furniture items.
“Production-wise, it was undoubtedly more complicated,” said Gentilini, adding that “our products are made in various regions of Italy, depending on the specific craftsmanship involved. We have ambitious expansion plans for this line, notably in the USA, where in July we will open a Dolce & Gabbana Casa store in Miami’s Design District. We are also setting our sights on the Middle East and other regions, with monobrand stores we will operate either directly or with partners, as well as via multibrand retailers.”
As a showroom, LLG is sharing the Dolce & Gabbana building in via Broggi in Milan, where the label’s home decoration division is headquartered. Each of the building's floors is dedicated to one of the four themes inspiring the collections, and also hosts the design and development offices for both the accessories and furniture lines. Nearly 40 people are working on the project, and the number is set to grow.
The furniture line includes about 600 items, and the accessories and home decoration line 1,500. Products in each category are made by traditional Italian artisans, with blown glass objects made in Murano, ceramics hand-painted in Sicily, and fabrics produced in Como. Some 40 artisans in total manufacture the products for Dolce & Gabbana’s home interiors division.
In terms of retail distribution, the label is planning to open a number of ad hoc stores. In addition to the Miami store opened by LLG, three other stores, all directly run by Dolce & Gabbana, will be inaugurated by mid-June in Cannes, Capri and Puerto Banús, near Marbella, in Spain. The label is also currently negotiating with distribution partners, seeking either to open other monobrand stores, or shop-in-shops at multibrand retailers that are able to showcase the entire home interiors range.
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