July 16, 2014 7:59 p.m. ET
Capri, Italy
Unlike most fashion shows, this one had no assigned seating. Guests, who had been warned to wear flat shoes, chose seats or pillows scattered around the rocks, some sprayed by sea waves. Many took selfies on the shore, framed by the dramatic Faraglioni cliffs that rose from the water nearby, as champagne was passed around.
Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana showed their fall Alta Moda collection on this rocky island last weekend. At the center of the three days of no-paparazzi events were 78 looks conceived by the designers for clients who pay prices that start at $40,000 and rise to sky's-the-limit.
There were no prints, which by their nature come in copies. Every striped or floral dress was hand-painted, the brush strokes visible to the naked eye. Accessories included 18-carat-gold sandals, flip flops lined with astrakhan fur, jewel-encrusted watches and gold crowns. Mr. Dolce said his favorite look was a full-length cape of lynx lined with shaved mink.
Dolce & Gabbana launched Alta Moda three years ago in an effort to woo elite shoppers. They used the Italian term for "haute couture" and opted to show in their beloved Italy rather than in Paris, where Giorgio Armani and Versace show haute couture lines. In fact, the entire exercise is a deep dive into the country's heritage, with collections inspired by different Italian regions and shown in them.
Paris's haute couture shows, which ended last week, are marketing events covered by several thousand writers and editors and attended by celebrities. Dolce & Gabbana's "Collezione Capri," by contrast, was attended last weekend by roughly 220 clients and 30 other guests, including Andrew Bolton, curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute.With word spreading through jet-set channels, attendance was up from 150 clients last season.
Rather than 12-minute fashion shows, these are action-packed weekends. Previous Alta Moda collections have taken the label's clients, along with their not-insignificant retinues, to Taormina in Mr. Dolce's native Sicily—a weekend that included a performance of the opera "Norma" at Taormina's ancient Greek Theatre—and to Venice, where guests attended an elaborate masked costume ball.
Alta Moda clients are assured that their attendance will remain private, with no photographs and the use of social media banned (though there are routinely slips by clients). Many clients declined to be named. Despite all the privacy, one Middle Eastern client sends a representative to do her buying.
The Milan-based company, which has 250 stores in 40 countries, is known for lingerie-inspired looks and for sharp Italian tailoring arising from the 55-year-old Mr. Dolce's passion for needle and thread. In 2011, during something of a midlife crisis—Mr. Gabbana is 51—the duo folded their less-expensive but profitable D&G label in order to move several rungs up the luxury ladder. "For that I had to lose $3 million," Mr. Dolce jokes of the privately held company, which reported revenue of roughly $1.5 billion in its fiscal year ended in March 2011.
Tanned and barefoot, Mr. Gabbana chatted the evening before the show while ensconced on a leopard-pelt throw on his 51-meter yacht, Regina d'Italia ("Queen of Italy"), which has five cabins and eelskin-covered corridor walls. The toilet paper is black. The Regina was custom-built to his specifications, with a mirror-like exterior intended to stealthily blend in with the sea.
Mr. Dolce, seated on a hard-backed chair across from a generous display of antipasti, preferred to discuss the clothes. He compared working on Alta Moda to reading the classics, rather than the gossip-magazine-like ready-to-wear business. The more reclusive of the two designers, Mr. Dolce habitually presses his nose into fabrics, and says he can tell a brocade from a silk gazar by its scent.
As a fashion collection, Alta Moda may be unrivaled for its materials and workmanship. Corseting gives structure to haute couture dresses, and Alta Moda's has boning sewn into tubes of fabric the old-fashioned way (rather than sewn directly onto fabric, a modern method). Dresses and shoes are embellished with amethyst, turquoise, antique coral, pearls, amber and malachite that could one day be recycled as jewelry.
After the shows, guests can try on the samples immediately or make an appointment for a following day. Samples are sewn with wide seam allowances for alterations. The designers are willing to take special orders. One Alta Moda client has ordered pajamas. The label's best client buys 30 to 40 looks each season.
Last weekend, attendees traveled to Capri by boat or helicopter. Choppy seas had some guests arriving seasick. They were greeted at their hotels or yachts with packages including a leather-bound book of the collection's inspirations, such as vintage-style Capri postcards and photos of muses such as Maria Callas. They also received the heretofore secret destination of the show on the island: a plein-air runway on the rocky shore of La Fontelina, a beach club. The site was reachable only by boat or a kilometer or so of zigzag stairs coming down steep rocks.
The evening's dress code—"dolce vita in the 1950s and 1960s"—made it convenient for many to wear their previous seasons' Alta Moda designs—richly colorful dresses with themes of Italian art, from ceramic patterns to fine art. Bianca Brandolini d'Adda, a scion of Fiat's Agnelli family, wore an ornate gilded dress from last season, and joked that she was looking for someone to buy her another from the current season.
During the runway show, which was twice as long as most, some models were ferried in by boat. Other models circled around paths in looks including fox moon boots, a 1950s-inspired suit in astrakhan and seven dresses made of antique 1960s fabrics.
Four dresses sold before the show ended, as clients texted photos and requests to salespeople before a rival could call dibs. During the open-air dinner that followed on the beach club's rocks, with more than 15 dishes passed around family style, some clients stepped away to try on clothes in a rented house nearby. An older Asian woman tried on a bejeweled crown. The actress and poker player Jennifer Tilly announced that she'd intended to shop. "That was until I realized the stones on the clothes are real!" she said. Five more dresses—mostly the ones with hand-painted stripes—sold during dinner, three of them to one Russian client.
The following day, all seven antique-fabric dresses sold, along with some of the furs. Sales will continue by appointment for several weeks. Alta Moda fittings can be done on dress forms designed to clients' own measurements and by salespeople who travel to the customer.
Each Alta Moda weekend concludes with a riotous party. This one involved dancing on tables strewed with bottles of Dom Pérignon while a band played midcentury Italian favorites. Guests took turns at the microphone on stage.
Mr. Dolce danced in a shirt and shorts printed with red hot peppers, a good-luck symbol on the island. Mr. Gabbana, wet with perspiration, shimmied and swayed in a pink wig with braids while guests sang every verse of "Volare" in Italian at the top of their lungs.
Write to Christina Binkley at christina.binkley@wsj.com
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