Each season Dolce & Gabbana - self-styled exhibitionist Italian boys - successfully plunder their heritage and the imagery of Italian cinema-makers such as Visconti for their look. New incarnations of dark eyed 'molto sexy' widows are reinvented time after time - even if it means with an added metal padlocked corset belt.
Domenico Dolce (b. 1958, near Palermo, Sicily) and Stefano Gabbana's (b.1962, Milan, Italy) creative partnership started out with them as a couple, but in 2005 they separated and carried on the business as friends. They have successfully channelled the power of the front row, the ad campaign and celebrity friends to their advantage with friends like Naomi Campbell and Kylie Minogue.
• Isabella Rossellini said: "The first piece of theirs I wore was a white shirt, very chaste, but cut to make my breasts look as if they were bursting out of it"
• Dolce and Gabbana created the costumes for Madonna's Girlie Show in 1993
• Dolce and Gabbana once dubbed the "Gilbert and George of Italian fashion"
• By1997, their company reported a turnover of £400 million, prompting both designers to announce that they planned to retire by the age of 40 - a promise they happily did not keep
By 2005 Dolce and Gabbana turnover was £597 million. Their celebratory dresses for glamazons are still much in demand.
Dolce & Gabbana website
