Dolce & Gabbana Holiday 2023 Ad Campaign

Review of Dolce & Gabbana Holiday 2023 Ad Campaign by Photographer Sebastian Faena and models Adele Aldighieri and Hedi Ben Tekaya

Dolce & Gabbana takes a Milanese holiday. The house shared a glamorous vision of romance for its Holiday 2023 campaign by photographer Sebastian Faena.

The campaign follows a stylish couple on a celebratory journey throughout Milan. Their mode of transportation, a vintage Vespa, is about as Italian as it gets, and it brings them with speedy elegance across the city’s iconic cafés, piazzas, and fountains. Intriguingly, a few of the images feature nuns who look on the couple’s acts of PDA with either annoyance or excitement, providing a bit of humor while tapping into Dolce’s signature blurring of boundaries between Italian conservatism and hedonist excess. Faena’s photographic compositions also make strong use of spatial depth and mirroring, offering unique angles on moments of intimate connection and the hustle and bustle of the holiday season.

Aside from the sparkly dress that is primed for a Christmas or New Year’s party and the vaguely ironic presence of religion, the imagery isn’t really recognizable as a holiday campaign. Nonetheless, the approach does feel both more clever and more grounded than the high-gloss campaigns we usually see from the brand, and it’s exciting to see D&G push itself and find new ways to exemplify its classic spirit.