Portrait
Domenico Dolce
Born
13 August 1958Polizzi Generosa, Italy
Fashion designerItaly

Domenico Dolce

With his partner Stefano Gabbana he built one of the world’s great fashion houses – and for fifteen years they kept their relationship out of the public eye.

Domenico Dolce grew up in the Sicilian mountain village of Polizzi Generosa, the son of a tailor. As a child he helped in his father’s workshop and is said to have sewn his first pair of trousers at six. He went to Milan to study fashion.

In 1980, in the studio of the designer Giorgio Correggiari, he met Stefano Gabbana. The two became a couple and in 1985 founded their own fashion house, Dolce & Gabbana. With no budget, they had friends model at their first shows. Their designs drew on Sicily, Catholic imagery and Italian film stars such as Sophia Loren and Anna Magnani. In 1993 they designed the costumes for Madonna’s “Girlie Show” tour, and the brand became one of the most successful in the world. Dolce is regarded as the tailor of the duo.

For many years the two kept their relationship private; they spoke about it publicly only around 2000. In 2005 they separated as a couple but continued to run the company together.

Dolce is a controversial figure in the queer community: in 2015 he described children born through IVF as “synthetic”, prompting a call for a boycott from Elton John and others. Even so, as co-founder of one of the most influential fashion houses and one half of one of the best-known gay couples in fashion, he helped make gay men visible at the top of the industry.

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