FASHIONISTAS were aghast yesterday at the news that after nearly 20 years together Dolce and Gabbana, the fathers of the iconic fashion house bearing their names, have gone their separate ways.
While their label, which adorns the wardrobes of A-list celebrities the world over, will remain, its founding fathers have split. Almost. Stefano Gabbana, 42, and Domenico Dolce, 46, will remain under the same roof, living in separate flats in the same Milan block. They will continue to run the company they founded in 1985 and which with the patronage of Madonna, Monica Bellucci, Kylie Minogue and Beyoncé Knowles is now worth some £350 million.
But after months of speculation, the couple announced that their love affair was over. “On a professional level we are still together,” Signor Dolce said in a candid interview with Corriere della Sera.
“We work together wonderfully well, we have a very strong understanding. What happened in the past is still there, it continues and will continue for ever. We have a very strong love which ties us to each other.”
The couple had, he claimed, achieved what few heterosexuals managed: an amicable separation. “It’s a question of sentimental education, of intelligence,” he said. Both men have taken new lovers, but could their enduring love withstand fits of jealousy? “It depends,” Signor Dolce replied. “It has not always been easy. We have lived together for 19 years, intensely, night and day, at work and on holiday.
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“There is the passion of the body, the flesh, and then there is love, which is deeper.” He said that for him — “and I hope the feeling is mutual” — Signor Gabbana would always be “the most important person of my life”.
The new men in their lives were left in no doubt. “I am always very clear,” Signor Gabbana said. “I say at once, look, I have this bond with Domenico. But Domenico and I work together the whole day, and in the evening we hardly see each other.”
Their harmonious separation belies a stormy past, with some of their arguments sparked by the men’s own wardrobes.
“I am a fanatically one-brand man,” Signor Dolce said. “But Stefano sometimes betrays us. He even wears clothes designed by up and coming unknowns. We argue about that.”
“True,” Signor Gabbana said. He recalled that he had once bought an Yves Saint Laurent coat and a leather jacket by Balenciaga. “Domenico wouldn’t speak to me for days.”
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News of the separation sent shockwaves through the fashion world. “Dolce without Gabbana is like Smith without Wesson or Moët without Chandon,” Corriera della Sera wrote.
The fact that they were lovers as well as business partners emerged in public only five years ago. “Everyone in our business knew about our love story,” Signor Gabbana said.
Whereas Signor Dolce’s mother had accepted his homosexuality, “my mother had hysterics when it came out, even though she had always known. She said, ‘What will the neighbours say?’ I said ‘Mamma, look, I’m nearly 40, I am not a murderer, I do no harm to anyone. Instead of loving a woman I love a man. But it is still love’.”
Both men agreed that though their affair was over, they would still go on holiday together. So were they likely to get together again? “I don’t think so,” Signor Gabbana said. When Signor Dolce interjected “never say never”, his business partner replied: “Never say never, but really, I don’t think so. Previously we never parted from each other, we were like Siamese twins. Now there is an estrangement.”
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