Dolce & Gabbana Call Mass Collections and Cut-Price Collaborations ‘Trashy’

Italian designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana have openly displayed their disapproval of mass collections and collaborations with fashion retail stores like H&M and Target. The designer duo said such collaborations could never live up to the standards of real high-end fashion that were beautiful, contemporary and timeless. The designers also stressed on the fact they would never follow in the footsteps of designers like Versace, Lanvin and Karl Lagerfeld.

Elegance is always beautiful, contemporary and timeless... there's no quality, these fast-fashion companies churning out looks, fashion Web site WWD quoted the designers as saying. They added that the quality of merchandise could not be retained, at the necessary high standards expected of high-end fashion houses, if cut-price collaborations were permitted.

In the interview, they also spoke on the recent tax evasion scandals affecting the brand.

In May 2009, the Italian government charged Dolce & Gabbana with tax evasion for having moved assets worth about 249 million Euros to Luxembourg (a tax-haven), between 2004 and 2006.

The designers said they had now put behind them the initial anger over the unfavourable Italian court decision.

At one time, to give vent to his emotions, Gabbana repeatedly reacted irately over Twitter, referring to the courts as ladri (thieves), saying: They don't know what to do to get money out of us.