Fashion designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana have unmistakably bold plans for their billion dollar beauty empire
With an empire worth $7.8 billion, the dynamic style duo have long been champions of Italian style, but their latest focus is the total reboot of their beauty empire.
Since the debut of their eponymous brand, Italian design duo Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana have always had a knack for setting the tempo of what’s to follow.
Their first ready-to-wear collection, unveiled during Milan Fashion Week in 1986, was entitled Donne Vere or “Real Women”. The show was notable for many reasons, including the new house’s then-unconventional decision to cast local Italian women in lieu of traditional models, a sentiment it has continued some four decades on.
Dolce&Gabbana’s September spring/summer ’25 collection was fittingly dubbed Italian Beauty and featured a roster of similarly diverse models donning the brand’s signature figure-hugging silhouettes as well as plumes of platinum curls and dramatic sweeps of winged eyeliner. The show, held a stone’s throw from the brand’s Milanese HQ, was as much a display of the house’s long-standing codes as it was a symbol of its future direction: a renewed focus on its multibillion-dollar beauty business.
“It is crucial for us to renew ourselves while staying true to our values and our DNA because this makes us unique and recognisable,” says Gabbana, one half of the designer duo that has led the brand from a small Italian fashion start-up to a global lifestyle empire.
Two years ago, the designers spearheaded Dolce&Gabbana’s beauty renaissance by partially ending its licensing agreement with Shiseido and welcoming the make-up arm of the business wholly in-house.
“We have been thinking about it for a long time and, in 2022, we decided to internalise the business to be able to manage it directly,” Dolce tells WISH. “It is a new challenge that we are facing with courage and passion.”
Their heads and hearts drove the decision to bring the beauty business back into the Dolce&Gabbana orbit – “[Make-up] is a category we care about in a special way,” says Gabbana – but it has also streamlined operations and allowed the designers to manage the beauty direction more closely. “Of course, the work has increased, but it is worth it,” says Gabbana, who despite overseeing the label’s beauty arm for more than 30 years, is buoyed by the idea of complete creative freedom. “We have an ambitious plan and the feedback we are getting shows that we are in the right direction.”
That starts with global expansion, including the upcoming unveiling of a dedicated beauty space within David Jones’s Elizabeth Street, Sydney flagship, as well as exclusively via the retailer’s website. The expanded new beauty footprint will house the maison’s complete suite of fragrances (among them, its blockbuster scents The One and Light Blue) and as well as its latest and most extensive cosmetics line, an 11-piece collection spanning skin, lip and eye formulas.
“Beauty is a universe that can offer all-round experiences that go beyond the product: this allows us to create an even deeper connection with the client, who is able to feel part of the Dolce&Gabbana family, identifying even more with our values,” says Dolce of the brand’s heritage codes.
“We always dreamed of a lifestyle brand, of telling our values and creativity through different product categories, even far from fashion.”
In September, the fashionable duo – in a move as far removed from the runway as possible – teamed up with heritage German stationer Stabilo on a set of now sold-out highlighters emblazoned with the house’s legendary leopard and blue-and-white floral motifs. That same month, Dolce&Gabbana launched Fefé, an $165 musk and sandalwood fragrance designed specifically for dogs, inspired by Dolce’s beloved poodle. There’s also a fully fledged furniture and casa collection, pasta, wine and phone collaborations, as well as the wildly popular range of toasters and kettles in partnership with fellow Italian powerhouse, Smeg.
With such diverse touchpoints, the thread that binds every Dolce&Gabbana creation is the designers’ unwavering commitment to its Italian heritage. Milan-born Gabbana first met Dolce – whose Sicilian roots inspire the maison’s use of vibrant colours and floral patterns – when he phoned the fashion house where Gabbana worked in the early ’80s. The pair soon opened a design consultancy business before making their first appearance in the Nuovi Talenti (New Talents) of Milan Fashion Week in 1985.
Despite ending their personal relationship 20 years later, the designers remain close collaborators and fond business partners, helming a privately held empire estimated to be worth US$5.3 billion ($7.8 billion).
“What we try to do, in all the sectors in which we are active, is to tell what we know best and love most: Italy and Italian-ness,” says Gabbana, who has long been influenced by the matriarchal values of Italian culture.
Family and connection are principles the house aims to cultivate through its Alta Moda couture shows. The shift to couture – which Gabbana describes as “a dream made of fabrics, craftsmanship, traditions, magnificent locations” – followed the shuttering of the brand’s more accessible spin-off label, D&G, in 2011.
Alta Moda presentations are multi-day affairs held in exquisite Italian locations including Sardinia, Puglia, and Naples, and an opportunity for the house’s VIP clientele to rub shoulders with the likes of Madonna, the Kardashians, and Dame Helen Mirren while shopping the most sought-after, one-off pieces. “What is behind the purchase of these unique pieces is not the need to get dressed, but the desire to live a dream to wear, to give oneself an unrepeatable experience,” says Gabbana.
With beauty and fragrance, the designers are offering precisely the opposite: an invitation to step into Dolce&Gabbana’s wonderfully opulent universe on repeat. “Two drops of perfume or a touch of lipstick on the lips are enough to close the circle and feel even more special,” says Gabbana.
The cosmetics category also presents a natural opportunity for legacy fashion houses to organically tap into the new beauty-worshipping Gen Z audience, who make up approximately 22 per cent of the global population. Aside from giving consumers a window into their luxury universe for a fraction of the price (a liquid lipstick from the new make-up range retails for $65, while a waterproof eyeliner is just $50), a cosmetics line, fragrance or suite of skincare products, also affords the brand a slice of the lucrative beauty pie, a category projected to reach US$580 billion globally by 2027.
Still, both Dolce and Gabbana see their revived beauty proposition as a long-term pursuit, one where they can support and give back to both the industry and their beloved homeland. “It is also fundamental for us to enhance the excellence of the Italian supply chain in the beauty segment,” explains Gabbana. This means collaborating with local farmers and wherever possible, taking a grassroots approach, incorporating raw materials and ingredients originating from home soil in
its formulas. “It makes us particularly proud to be able to say that our beauty is made in Italy. We produce in Italy thanks to strategic collaborations with the best companies in the sector,” adds Dolce.
It’s broad sweeps such as this that prove the designers’ unwavering dedication to the business they created in a small studio nearly 40 years ago. Instead of winding back their involvement, the duo remains agile, energetic and hopeful for what the future holds. “You have to look at change as an opportunity,” says Dolce optimistically. “Approach the future with positivity, resourcefulness and move forward [while] always remaining consistent with yourself.”
“We are very fortunate because in these years we have been able to realise most of our dreams. But we will never stop dreaming, and dreaming big,” adds Gabbana.
“We are designers, so for us creativity is the engine of everything. It is important to never repeat yourself, to always challenge yourself, because when you make something that is an expression of your idea, your feeling, your way of being, there will always be a new challenge!” Now that’s the Italian spirit.
This story is from the November issue of WISH.
