Dolce and Gabbana have replaced sex with science – what if sex on its own really doesn’t sell?

Dolce & Gabbana aren’t letting a little thing like the pandemic stand between them and one of their biggest ready-to-wear collections yet (135 looks since you ask). All fashion history is here – from crystal-studded plastics, lockdown-inspired transparent sunglasses shaped like visors and ER-style elasticated boots, to hair accessories that looked back to Anne Boleyn.

With impeccable timing, on the same day that New York Police Department unleashed its first robotic dog onto the streets, Dolce & Gabbana let loose a stream of robots on its digital catwalk which is as eye catching a way as any to announce their continued support of the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, one of the most esteemed scientific institutes in the world.

Tech is not just esteemed, it’s sexy, in the way that banking was when Dolce & Gabbana started out and Madonna was their patron saint. She featured in this collection too, in the shape of those infamous corseted leotards that defined her '90s era.

Other ‘90s milestones references here include the jewelled corsets that appeared on Prince’s backing group, The New Power Generation, in the 1991 video for Cream, the jewelled bodysuit Linda Evangelista wore, the jewelled one Naomi wore.

“It came as a shock to us to realise that it’s 30 years ago, since all of this,” says Stefano Gabbana. There are models on their digital catwalk who were born way after those looks first made headlines. “So this is our tribute to that time, to the world of supermodels and the idea of being sexy”.

The thing is, for the AB (After Justin Bieber) generation, as Dolce and Gabbana call them these pieces might as well have come from a museum. “Millennials are always telling us they want to wear ‘90s clothes,” says Stefano Gabbana, somewhat bemused. “But even the words are starting to have a distorted meaning. When (my generation) talks of being “sexy” we think of something specific, but (nowadays) that might be completely different for each person”.

It’s true that Billie Eilish might not relate to Dolce’s red-blooded approach to sexiness, but that’s ok. They’ve got her covered, in every sense, with the largest, most insulating coats this side of The Revenant, albeit often undone over bikinis.

This collection really did try to have it every way. It looked back at its archived silhouettes, and then overlaid them, literally and metaphorically, with layers not just of irony but of laminates and varnishes more commonly used on cars. Wool was woven with cellophane while luminescent filaments normally used in industrial design wound up on coats. Glittery as some of those boots with their elasticated tops are, they still have more than a touch of the operating theatre about them, and that changes the whole mood of a spangled mini skirt.