Inside The Immersive New Milan Exhibition Celebrating Dolce & Gabbana’s Alta Moda

When Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana first discussed celebrating their Alta Moda, Alta Sartoria, and Alta Gioielleria collections—the pinnacle of the body of work they’ve been building for four decades—an exhibition with a didactic parade of clothed mannequins wasn’t even an option, Gabbana says. “It’s not who we are.” Instead, they concocted an immersive takeover of Milan’s Palazzo Reale, transforming it into a series of tableaux of almost operatic extravagance rooted in the emotion and amore of Italian culture as translated by artisans into exceptional fatto a mano, or handcrafted, pieces.

Curated by French fashion historian Florence Müller (who previously put together “Dior: From Paris to the World” and “Yves Saint Laurent: The Retrospective”), “From the Heart to the Hands” will run in Milan from April 7 to July 31.

“Today, this idea of the atelier, of the savoir faire, is sort of mainstream,” says Dolce. “But we’ve had the in-house sartoria from day one—I was born and bred in a sartoria, and I’m always revisiting la giacca perfetta—the perfect tailored jacket.” (Dolce’s studio features both the original mirror from his father’s sartoria and an image of a Madonna given to his father by a prominent archbishop.)

The launch of the Alta Moda in 2012 was an opportunity, as Gabbana puts it, “to give ourselves the gift of unlimited creativity,” and the exhibition is a cinematic tour through a universe as rich as a Sicilian cassata, the marzipan delicacy with pastel-hued frosting recalling the Baroque curlicues adorning storied palazzi. Invitations to “From the Heart to the Hands” depict a model wearing a dress inspired by the Madonnina, a golden statue that sits atop the highest pinnacle of Milan’s Duomo and serves as a symbol of the city. “When I arrived from Sicily to Milan, I sent a prayer to the Madonnina,” Dolce says, “asking her to never go back to Sicily, and to keep me here—and she listened to me!”

The exhibition’s 10 chapters play out in dedicated installations, with the first inspired by the splendor of Venice’s Scuola Grande di San Rocco, which houses the finest of Tintoretto’s paintings. A grand mirrored-ceiling gallery displays paintings by Anh Duong—a longtime muse of the designers—framing a group of papier-mâché mannequins showcasing a mélange of elaborate tailoring techniques.

Designed as a modern hall of mirrors, the next room celebrates historic Venetian glassmakers such as Barbini and Barovier & Toso, with gowns and capes ornamented with appliqués of flowers handcrafted in glass glowing like delicate jewels under an array of antique chandeliers. That’s followed by a space dedicated to Il Gattopardo (The Leopard), the landmark 1963 Visconti movie: Set in turbulent 1860s Italy, it documents the crumbling of the aristocratic world amid the nascent power of the bourgeoisie.