LuminosityItalia

By Mariella Radaelli Some say beauty is simple. But others contend it’s complicated. Can it be both? To enter into the sensuous curves of a Dolce & Gabbana design is to experience a complicated kind of beauty, like exploring the majestic landscape of Sicily with its Baroque towns, monasteries, quiet roads, rich soil flourishing with orange and lemon plantations, its white sand beaches. The iconic couture house literally portrays Sicilian Baroque through expressive, sexy clothes that have the energy and imagination of the south of Italy, where the architecture takes the most complex forms — a style that even “baroqued” the Baroque, adding extra elaborate ornamentation to facades of buildings. Stefano Gabbana and Domenico Dolce Co-founders Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana enter their office in Milan in the company of their two Labradors, one black and one chocolate. They instantly create a friendly and playful atmosphere. I reached the famed Italian design duo at their of...

By Jon Van Housen and Mariella Radaelli For all his Machiavellian maneuvering, Silvio Berlusconi could well have been the one blindsided in early June. As the 80-year-old former Italian prime minister continued the latest protracted negotiations over the sale of the AC Milan football club, this time to a group of Chinese investors, cross-town rival Inter Milan was sold to Suning Holdings Group, the home appliance chain headed by Zhang Jindong, China’s richest man. The 80-year-old former prime minister is preparing  to sell his famed soccer team. The move took many by surprise as the deal was consummated with no prior fanfare. Posters promoting Inter Milan and Suning were up the next day in the Beijing metro. With a reported June 15 deadline looming to finalize the sale of AC Milan, Berlusconi checked into a Milan hospital for heart surgery. It was just the latest turn in a saga that has seen Berlusconi appoint his then-29-year-old daughter to run the club, and a...