Why Kim Kardashian and Dolce & Gabbana go so well together

Mamma Mia, what a scene. The Sicilian sex goddess has just cooked pasta, in an al dente leopard negligee, of course. But now she’s hanging around the window, lost in thought with the wooden spoon, while the spaghetti in the pot next to her is probably getting cold and sticky. Because there are only old people and cats sitting in their yard? Whatever is meant here, somehow the famous cleavage had to be squeezed into the Italian scene in order to announce this congenial collaboration: Dolce & Gabbana x Skims. Kim Kardashian and her shapewear line are teaming up with Italian Dolce Vita designers for a collection.

Accordingly, the 44-year-old looks like a cross between Gina Lollobrigida and Sophia Loren in the campaign photos. The dark hair is curled and layered, the waist is narrow, the breasts are high, the look is extra sensual. In one photo she is seriously wearing a small white apron with sexy black stockings. When the collection went live last Tuesday, the Skims site temporarily crashed due to the huge rush.

The pairing isn’t even particularly surprising. The reality TV star was already the figurehead of the Dolce & Gabbana show in autumn 2022, and her sister Kourtney Kardashian hired the Italians to furnish her wedding in Portofino. But it’s no longer about originality; people love clear statements. Plus, everything fits together here. Not only are both sides known for modeling the figure with their products. The attitude of this trio also fits perfectly into the current zeitgeist of the old, new Trump era, in which you can get away with anything – as long as you entertain people well enough.

As a reminder: Shouldn’t Domenico Dolce, 66, and Stefano Gabbana, 62, have actually been canceled long ago? The two of them had more than enough scandals. In 2015, Dolce, as a good Catholic, made negative comments about gay couples with children, prompting Elton John to angrily call for a boycott of the label. Summer shoes have been called “slave sandals” on the website without irony, and the brand, unlike many others, was happy to dress the then First Lady Melania Trump. The campaign from 2018, in which a Chinese model tries to eat dishes such as pasta and pizza with chopsticks, is legendary. What was supposed to be a funny “declaration of love to China” was perceived by many there as discriminatory. However, the expected exodus did not materialize. In 2023, the label achieved record sales of around 1.8 billion euros.

Kim Kardashian, on the other hand, visited the White House a few times during Trump’s first term in office and is friends with Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. All because of her then, somewhat bipolar husband, Kanye West? Last week she appeared flirtatious with Trump intimate Elon Musk’s new Tesla robot.

She was repeatedly criticized for so-called blackfishing. Kim Kardashian is American with Armenian roots. However, she often appeared distinctly African-American with braided pigtails, dark makeup and an artificially padded bottom. Now she has obviously reached her Italian phase. Others have already received shitstorms for less cultural appropriation. On the other hand, she is still followed by 360 million people on Instagram. According to the New York Times, the Skims brand, which she co-founded in 2019, was worth four billion dollars last year.

The illustrious trio has one thing in common: everything seems to roll off like a well-coated Teflon pan. Nothing sticks much. Dolce & Gabbana quickly made peace with Elton John, and after the China debacle they didn’t publicly grovel for long. Instead, they preferred to bring a new celebrity manager from Versace on board, and now largely keep their mouths shut and let expensively paid celebrities speak for themselves. At the fashion show in September, veteran star Madonna was in the audience.

Kardashian doesn’t remember any big “mea culpa” moments either. When, after her appearance in the Marilyn Monroe glittering dress at the Met Gala 2022, she proudly said that she had lost seven kilos in just three weeks and, as expected, caused an outcry, she simply said that she had not done anything “unhealthy”. , and compared her performance to that of actors like Renée Zellweger and Christian Bale, who also gained or lost a lot of weight for roles. She seems to be showcasing her hourglass silhouette even more aggressively since then. The large portion of pasta in the picture? She probably didn’t eat it.

With this shameless self-righteousness, Kardashian and the designers resemble the man who was just re-elected American president. Like Trump, they are absolutely consistent in their demeanor, undeterred, they always follow the same line. “Dresses from Dolce & Gabbana are sexy, feminine, high-quality, and that’s what the target group is looking for,” says Susanne Botschen, who brought the two designers to Germany with her Munich boutique “Theresa” in the late 1980s. Essentially, the notorious exploitation of the Italian dolce vita is reminiscent of a “MAGA” campaign applied to fashion. Kardashian, on the other hand, became famous with a sex video and still relies on provocative poses that are staged to the maximum.

Even if you follow these people’s activities with a shake of your head, they all look and are as stunned as they are fascinated. Dolce, Gabbana and Kardashian operate the lowest mechanisms of show business. Real satire as entertainment.

Kardashian’s 40th birthday, which she celebrated on a private island, will never be forgotten. Unfortunately, the party fell in the middle of the pandemic, when the unprivileged rest of the world was still sitting at home. In addition to a lot of envy and a bit of anger, the bottomless impudence caused tons of meme fodder and even more attention.

At the Dolce & Gabbana fashion shows, even die-hard D&G haters among editors and stylists grudgingly admit that women, especially those over a dress size 38, unfortunately look stunning in the clothes. And when the two aging designers actually appear at their after-show party in Milan and serve pasta with their own hands to Italian disco music, it’s of course a total cliché. But in the end, people just melt away like warm mozzarella.