JLo made it to Dolce & Gabbana’s Alta Moda show in Sicily after landing in Catania while Mount Etna was still smoking. She arrived on a night when the brand’s multi-day gathering was already moving, and she admitted she had raced to catch up.
“Great! We just arrived, and then we ran to get ready, and ran to make it for the show. I think we’re a little late, but there’s no late in Italy, right?” Lopez said before the show. The timing put her straight into a runway program built around 100 looks and an hour of performance, with more than 300 clients, family, and friends traveling to the historic spot.
Radicepura and the 100 looks
Jennifer Lopez entered Radicepura wearing a lavishly bejeweled Alta Moda wiggle dress framed by a golden cape, then changed after the show into a regal goddess gown in lemon chiffon for dinner. The setting gave Dolce & Gabbana a stage that was part fashion presentation, part controlled social event, with the audience size alone signaling how tightly curated the night was.
“I’ve always responded to Dolce & Gabbana because it feels like they really love women through their clothes. It’s always had a kind of sexiness, that Italian sexiness, to it,” Lopez said. She linked that feeling to Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida, adding that when she wears the clothes, “I feel like a bombshell, like a queen, like the sexiest woman in the world: I feel all the things!”
2004, 2021, and Venice
Lopez has been building that relationship for years. She said she went to one of her first Met Galas in 2004 with Stefano and Domenico, and recalled wearing a jeweled corset, trousers, a long cape and a crown for Dolce & Gabbana’s Venice show in 2021, calling it one of her favorite looks from the brand.
That history gives the Sicily appearance a business edge beyond celebrity frontage: the house is not just dressing Lopez for one night, it is repeatedly using her as a live reference point for its own language of Italian sexiness and theatrical luxury. For a label staging a multi-day event, the presence of a familiar face with that kind of backstory helps turn a runway into a destination.
Taormina after Mount Etna
Mount Etna erupted last week, then was still smoking last night when Lopez and her team arrived in Catania. The event keeps moving tonight with Alta Sartoria in Taormina’s ancient amphitheater, before closing on Thursday with a beach party.
Lopez said, “Italy is one of my favorite places in the world.” The unanswered question is the simplest one left in the program: who will perform at the Thursday beach party.
