Taormina hosted Dolce&Gabbana 2026 Alta Sartoria presentation during a five-day program that also included Alta Gioielleria and Alta Moda. The house framed the menswear collection through two Sicilian references: the painted cart, which shaped the dinner in the Public Gardens, and Cavalleria Rusticana, which informed the production at the Teatro Antico.
MENSWEAR COLLECTIONS
The program began in Taormina’s Public Gardens, where the Alta Sartoria dinner explored the visual language of the Sicilian cart. Long used for transport, the cart also functions as a form of folk art. Painted panels depict knights, saints, heroes, battles and legends, preserving stories and traditions through vivid images.
Dolce&Gabbana used the cart as the central motif for an evening of fashion, art, music, food and fragrance. Its colors carried direct references to the island. Red recalled the lava of Mount Etna, while yellow evoked sunlight and Sicily’s golden sands. Blue referred to the surrounding clear waters, and green drew from citrus groves and dense gardens.
The dinner extended this palette through Sicilian cuisine, allowing color to move from painted surfaces to the table. Set among the garden’s fairy-tale structures, the event treated the cart as a carrier of memory and imagination.
The collection presentation later shifted the focus to Cavalleria Rusticana. Giovanni Verga first created the story, and Pietro Mascagni later adapted it into a major work of Verismo and Italian opera. Love, desire, jealousy and honor drive its characters, creating a drama closely connected with Sicilian ideas of passion and fate.
Dolce&Gabbana transformed the Teatro Antico into a Sicilian square from the late 19th century. Farmers, fishermen, shepherds, cart drivers and nobles shared the setting, forming a community shaped by different social roles and common rituals.
The collection entered through sculpted silhouettes, velvet, embroidery and exact construction. Each garment responded to the atmosphere of the opera and to a culture where dress carries social and emotional meaning. The designs explored elegance through the meeting of aristocratic codes and popular customs.
Details referenced memory, belonging and identity without separating the clothes from the surrounding production. The theatrical setting gave each look a narrative role, while the collection’s forms and materials extended the themes already present in the music and performance.
The event presented honor as something expressed through gestures, promises, silence and attachment to place. By placing its 2026 Alta Sartoria collection within Taormina’s gardens and ancient theatre, Dolce&Gabbana translated those ideas into clothing, performance and imagery drawn directly from Sicily.
