Dolce&Gabbana’s Alta Sartoria inspired by Biblioteca Ambrosiana’s precious codices and manuscripts

Dolce&Gabbana’s Alta Sartoria inspired by the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana’s works of art.

The Dolce&Gabbana Alta Sartoria show 2019 took place in the halls of the prestigious Biblioteca and Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, the home of some of the greatest masterpieces of Italian art and culture.

Dolce&Gabbana Alta Sartoria 2019/2020: This collection is truly a work of art.

The Biblioteca Ambrosiana, founded by Cardinal Federico Borromeo and inaugurated on 8 December 1609, was one of the earliest libraries to grant access to all who could read and write. It was conceived by its founder as a centre for study and culture, and it was the very inspiration for the Dolce&Gabbana Alta Sartoria Show.

Dolce&Gabbana’s Alta Sartoria capewas inspired by a rich banquet showing a forest green collar, entirely embroidered by hand with silk and raffia threads to depict a sumptuously set up on a table.

This year’s Alta Sartoria collection was inspired by the typical subjects of the still life paintings of the Flemish seventeenth-century, like the tables filled with fruits, food, tableware and glasses. There were an abundance of silk satin shirts with a scarf tied to the neck and green fringes of hand-knotted silk, printed with a still life on black background. A printed silk-satin shirt with an all-over pattern of antique open books was paired with a scarf tied to the neck, a turtleneck sweater and classic trousers with a high turn-up at the bottom in grey marbled fabric.

Dolce&Gabbana’s Alta Sartoria large shirt inspired by the uniform of a Renaissance painter’s workshop is made of silk-linen with a camel-coloured effect, complete with vertical striped textures in tone. Giorgione’s “Portrait of a Youth” inspired an embroidered shirt with contrasting sleeves and back in green velvet, finished with a trimmed neckline in tone.

Gian Giacomo Caprotti’s “San Giovanni Battista” were re-imagined on a jacket with contrasting sleeves in sage green velvet. The Alta Sartoria jacket depicts San Giovanni, and the artist Caprotti, one of Leonardo da Vinci’s favourite pupils. The shirt and scarf in white poplin and the classic trousers in dark green brocade complete the look.

A model presented a single-breasted coat with lance lapel and bright dark brown collar embroidered with silk, wool and chenille threads and ribbons.

Dolce&Gabbana’s Alta Sartoria single-breasted jacket inspired by still life paintings features a tailored cut with a burgundy braid frog closure. The expertly hand-made embroidery techniques distinguish and characterize the subjects of a composition made of fruits, flowers with autumnal hues.

The double-breasted chamber jacket in burgundy velvet is inspired by the use of trimmings on military dresses, embellished with shawl collar and the contrasting handguard, bow-shaped closure in cannettè fabric.

The ultra-luxury collection includes a shirt inspired by the pages of the “Codex Atlanticus”, the largest collection of drawings and writings by Leonardo da Vinci, dated between 1478 and 1518 and kept at the Ambrosian Library in Milan. The shirt printed in silk crepe, with a scarf tied to the neck and hand-knotted fringes are embellished with mother-of-pearl buttons.

To conclude the ceremony of the Dolce&Gabbana Alta Sartoria Show, the guests were invited to a unique place, the Bar Martini, ready to enjoy a special lunch of unbelievable sensory experience. See also some of the stunning Dolce&Gabbana’s Alta Orologeria timepieces presented on the occasion.