--- title: Milan Fashion Week: Dolce and Gabbana's Show Celebrates Mothers description: The designers' Milan Fashion Week show celebrated mothers — but not in the way our culture needs canonical: https://time.com/3728185/dolce-and-gabbana-viva-la-mamma-milan-fashion-week/ author: Megan Gibson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-03-02T21:48:01.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:45:19.457Z og:title: The Problem With Dolce and Gabbana's Motherhood-Themed Runway Show og:description: The designers' Milan Fashion Week show celebrated mothers — but not in the way our culture needs og:url: https://time.com/3728185/dolce-and-gabbana-viva-la-mamma-milan-fashion-week/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfabfe4f446556207/698781be8e0601213d45a926/dolce-gabbana-fashion-week.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2100 og:image:height: 1181 og:image:alt: Dolce & Gabbana - Runway RTW - Fall 2015 - Milan Fashion Week og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Problem With Dolce and Gabbana's Motherhood-Themed Runway Show twitter:description: The designers' Milan Fashion Week show celebrated mothers — but not in the way our culture needs twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfabfe4f446556207/698781be8e0601213d45a926/dolce-gabbana-fashion-week.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Problem With Dolce and Gabbana's Motherhood-Themed Runway Show > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account. ## Video: Emma Thompson on Motherhood and Her Goth Daughter [Watch (HLS stream): Emma Thompson on Motherhood and Her Goth Daughter](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/wMq7LsBi.m3u8) (1:17)  _Published 2013-12-04. Emma Thompson talks with TIME about becoming a mother and how she feels about her daughter being a Goth_ by [Megan Gibson](https://time.com/author/megan-gibson/) ## Megan Gibson Mar 2, 2015 9:48 PM UTC  Models walk the runway at the Dolce & Gabbana Autumn Winter 2015 fashion show during Milan Fashion Week on March 1, 2015 in Milan, Italy. Models walk the runway at the Dolce & Gabbana Autumn Winter 2015 fashion show during Milan Fashion Week on March 1, 2015 in Milan, Italy. Catwalking/Getty Images by [Megan Gibson](https://time.com/author/megan-gibson/) ## Megan Gibson Mar 2, 2015 9:48 PM UTC Mother’s Day arrived early this year in Italy, where Milan Fashion Week is currently taking place. Sunday’s Dolce and Gabbana show, named “Viva la mamma!,” was entirely dedicated to celebrating motherhood. A handful of models walked the runway with their children and babies, while “Mama” by the Spice Girls played. Model Bianca Balti, heavily pregnant with her second child, even walked in the show. Designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana have said the show was an homage to their own mothers. The collection on display matched the mother-loving theme: ultra-feminine shapes — think full skirts and cinched waists — with loads of lace and florals. Many of the garments were emblazoned with the word “Mamma” or had children’s drawings printed across them, in the same vein as [Angelina Jolie’s wedding veil](http://time.com/3257917/angelina-jolie-wedding-veil-emobroidered/). It’s hard to deny the actual collection is stunning, but the idea of the show itself left me cold. Celebrating motherhood is all well and good, but this display was an entirely shallow endorsement of women that smacks of a gimmick. The theme might be sweet and largely inoffensive — after all, who doesn’t love moms? — but it also stuck to a particularly narrow definition of mothers. In D&G’s world, motherhood is the most limiting archetype of all, where women are radiant and impossibly beautiful, but not truly sexual. Of course, it was nice to see a shape on the runway that falls outside the runway norm and isn’t pin-thin. One of the most justified and enduring criticisms of the fashion world is its reliance on ultra thin and, in some cases, unhealthy bodies. So props to Dolce and Gabbana, who asked Balti, clad in a form-fitting pink dress, to walk the runway. Alas, Balti was the only one on the runway who offered anything different, size-wise. (And, as others have [pointed out](http://www.refinery29.com/2015/03/83098/pregnant-model-kids-featured-dolce-gabbana-fall-2015), the models were mostly caucasian.) The rest of the models — even the new mothers — shared the typical model dimensions we’ve come to expect from fashion week. But there’s a destructive side to flashily incorporating mothers-to-be and new mothers in a fashion show. In many ways our culture fetishizes mothers — and pregnancy — and the fashion and beauty industries are no different. Many women’s magazines and fashion websites have dedicated plenty of space to cataloging pregnant celebrities and their growing “bumps.” The very same publications devote even more attention to those women’s bodies after they give birth, either celebrating the return of a “[pre-baby body](http://www.shape.com/celebrities/celebrity-workouts/how-ali-landry-got-her-pre-baby-body-back)” or tracking the [struggle to bounce back](http://okmagazine.com/get-scoop/kim-kardashians-diet-explained-the-crazy-measures-shes-taking-to-lose-weight/) to a so-called ideal. Unfortunately, much of our culture’s focus on new motherhood and pregnancy ends up revolving around women’s bodies and how they look. That context is hard to separate in a fashion show — which displays women’s clothing on women’s bodies — that also tries to honor motherhood, no matter how well-intentioned. _Read next:_ [_World’s Most Famous Baby Photographer on the Power of Motherhood_](http://time.com/94281/anne-geddes-mothers-day-motherhood/?xid=time%5Freadnext) Sign up [here](http://time.com/t4parents) to get TIME for Parents, a free weekly email with all the most essential and insightful parenting stories of the week. [_Listen to the most important stories of the day._](http://time.com/newsletter/the-brief/?sl%5Fautoplay=true&xid=spl-fullbrief-article) ## Transcript [00:00] >>Do you think there's a big gap between mothers [00:03] and not mothers? You spent quite a long time as not a [00:05] mother and then switched. [00:07] >>That's beginning to-- the space that [00:11] women have in which they do not have to think about [00:14] whether they want to be a mother or whether being a [00:16] mother is difficult for them or whether not being a [00:19] mother anymore 'cause their children have left home is [00:22] difficult to me. It's nice to think that women have [00:24] patches of time whether you're not have to worry about [00:26] all of that. I find it fascinating because, [00:30] of course, now I can't be dragged away from children [00:35] and babies, whereas, I really wasn't very interested at [00:37] all before I was a mom. [00:37] >>So you have a teenage daughter now and I [00:41] wondered if she looked appeal-- I have a teenage [00:42] daughter too. Does she looked at [ unk ] hair here and [00:44] go, " Mom-- no ." [00:46] >>Yeah, well, we all said that. Everyone said that. [00:51] Everyone looked like an infant woolly mammoth and [00:54] just said no. It reminds me of having a perm when I [00:58] was 17 and it was equally well- advised then. I looked [01:01] terrible. You know, she cheated but she's a [ unk ] now [01:04] so sometimes I do a hair up in like spikes. She [01:09] looks so cool. I just thought, as soon as you become a [01:10] girl I thought [ unk ]. Thank God. [01:11] >>Thank God just a girl. 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