Emancipation and sensuality: exploring femininity in Dolce & Gabbana’s spring/summer 2025 collection
Words DOMENICO COSTANTINI
The Dolce & Gabbana Spring/Summer 2025 show, with the charismatic presence of Madonna, became a celebration of the transformative power of the pop icon. Her appearance, wrapped in a black veil and symbolically crowned by the designers themselves, marked a break with the usual narrative of the fashion shows: fashion was not just an aesthetic display, but the expression of a dialogue between past and present, between symbolism and reality.
Madonna, a revolutionary figure and inspiring muse, embodied the fusion between pop mythology and contemporary femininity, a diva capable of constantly rewriting her identity.
The collection itself evoked the iconography of the 90s diva, with blonde wigs, pointy bras, and laced corsets, transporting Jean Paul Gaultier’s aesthetic into a new and more intimate dimension. Dolce & Gabbana do not limit themselves to citing Madonna as a muse, but through her style, they explore a deeper concept of femininity: the woman as a creature who plays with her contradictions, capable of revealing her sensuality and power without masks, in a continuous dialogue between vulnerability and strength. The idea of a “revealed femininity” emerges in the overlapping of exposed lingerie, oversized trench coats, and slit dresses, playing with the boundary between intimacy and the spectacularity of the body.
The reference to the past is not mere nostalgia, but a reminder of timeless symbols of sensuality recorded in a contemporary key.
The show was a conceptual reflection on the female body: not a passive object, but a vehicle of narratives, which through fashion tells stories of emancipation, desire, and power.
