What Is Dolce & Gabbana Alta Moda?

Alta Moda is Dolce & Gabbana’s couture line. It launched in 2012 with a debut show in
Taormina, on the east coast of Sicily, and it operates on a different footing from everything
else the house makes.

What makes it different from ready-to-wear

• It is made to order. Pieces are commissioned rather than produced to a
  size run, which is the defining feature of couture as opposed to ready-to-wear.
• It is shown outside the Milan calendar. Ready-to-wear shows during Milan
  Fashion Week. Alta Moda travels, and the location is part of the event.
• It is staged in Italian settings rather than a Paris salon. Taormina for
  the debut, and other Italian locations since.
• It is not sold through retailers. There is no Alta Moda rail. That is
  why you will not find it at any stockist, including this one.

Why Sicily

Because it is where half the house comes from. Domenico Dolce grew up around a tailoring
workshop in Polizzi Generosa, in the province of Palermo, and the Sicilian references that run
through the ready-to-wear are not decoration borrowed from elsewhere. Launching the couture
line in Taormina put the couture where the source material is.

Alta Moda and Alta Sartoria

Alta Moda is the womenswear couture line. The house runs a menswear counterpart under the
name Alta Sartoria. Both operate on the same made-to-order basis and are shown at the same
events.

What you can actually buy

Ready-to-wear, which is where the same codes arrive in a sized, purchasable form. The lace,
the corsetry, the leopard and the majolica prints all appear in the main collection, cut on the
Italian ladder and made in Italy.

If the appeal of Alta Moda is the ornament, the closest thing you can own is the most
embellished end of the ready-to-wear: the sequined and beaded eveningwear, and the brocade
tailoring with jewel buttons. Luxury Handbags carries both across
dresses and
jackets.

For the background on the house, read
who Dolce & Gabbana are. For the
motifs themselves, see the
print edit.