>> Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and Dolce & Gabbana Campaigns Under Way —Last week, Gucci wrapped its Spring 2010 ad campaign shoot in Miami, with Emmanuelle Alt styling once again, and this week, it sounds like Louis Vuitton and Dolce & Gabbana are taking care of business.  Mary Alice Stephenson Tweets that Vuitton is shooting today in New York — Lara Stone has reportedly replaced Madonna for the brand, with Steven Meisel on photo duty — while Stefano Gabbana and Domenico Dolce left for New York earlier today for their ad campaign shoot — funnily enough, Madonna is said to be on Dolce & Gabbana menswear duty this upcoming season. [@LiveFashionWeek, @maryalicestyle, @stefanogabbana]

>> Dolce & Gabbana to Be in Upcoming Madonna Video? —Madonna may be the face of Louis Vuitton, but it's Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana who will reportedly appear in her upcoming music video, "Celebrate."  Scenes were apparently shot during a dinner Dolce and Gabbana hosted for Madonna after her show Wednesday in Milan at their club-restaurant Gold, and more is expected to be shot Saturday at the designer's Metropole Theater, which they usually use for fashion shows and events. [WWD] 

>> While Prada is talking to banks about renegotiating its debt to free up cash for an aggressive store expansion instead of taking recent offers to sell a minority stake, Dolce & Gabbana are lowering their prices between 10 and 20 percent.

Stefano Gabbana informed WWD of the initiative, which begins with the Spring 2010 season for both Dolce & Gabbana and D&G, and is intended to be long-term, while "wearing a white shirt, frayed khaki Bermuda shorts and Crocs sandals."  In order to uphold creativity and quality while achieving the drop in price, the designers have diminished their usual selection of hundreds of fabrics to dozens in a more far-ranging palette and made construction of their garments simpler.

So what do the new prices look like? »

>> When Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana were docked in Cannes for the film festival last week, they invited a reporter from the Telegraph to lie with them on a leopard-skin throw on Gabbana's yacht, among a bevy of bronzed models in brief swimwear draped over the furniture. Gabbana did mini pirouettes while explaining that they first visited the festival seven years ago: “That first year, I remember partying so hard that I left a nightclub with a gigantic red bowl and walked home with it over my head.”

Gabbana may be the only designer in the world these days who isn't enamored with the Obamas; he shrugged at the suggestion that he and Dolce might like to dress them: “We don’t do politics.”  Also not on their to-do list? A diffusion line for the likes of H&M — Gabbana pulls a face at the thought: "We don’t need to. That kind of exposure could be dangerous for us.”

On babies, retirement, and their first impressions of each other »

>> THE ZEITGEIST —Having a camera-toting entourage seems to be in vogue this season: Coco Rocha had an E! camera crew following her around in New York, Jessica Stam led MTV News around backstage at Anna Sui, Anna Wintour, who was joined by 60 Minutes's Morley Safer at Ralph Lauren and more recently, Dolce & Gabbana, is still filming for that video profile, and now Carine Roitfeld is being followed by a CNN crew in Milan and Paris for a Revealed show, to be aired after the Paris collections. [WWD Twitter, CNN]

>> The men of Dolce & Gabbana not only like to argue with fellow designers, they like to squabble among themselves.  In the February 2009 issue of Interview, Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana sit down with Tim Blanks for what turns out to be quite the sassy little chat, ranging from how they approach designing to how their Milan office has not one, but two signed prints of a Madonna portrait by Steven Klein: "'Of course, one each,' Gabbana says archly. 'Dolce & Gabbana is not one.'”

They know their weaknesses — animal prints, corsets — and try hard to stay away.

SG: We start every season with a piece of paper, two lists— “Yes” and “No.”  And always it’s “No brocade, no animal prints . . .”  It’s too easy to do the brocade. We do the list because we are not young. We are old chickens in the system. We’ve done this job for 24 years, you know.

DD: And we design too much animal print. So, “No animal print,” and “Yes a white shirt with lace,” “Yes a new shoulder,” “No brocade . . .” But finally, maybe I need some brocade.

SG: Or then maybe I need to do it in a corset, and in the end . . .

"Sometimes I think he does it just to annoy me." »

>> In what is being alternately called "the most acidic row to hit the fashion world in 15 years," and "Trousergate," Giorgio Armani accused Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana of copying his Fall 2008 quilted pants (left) and putting them on their Fall 2009 runway Sunday (right).

Armani is notoriously bold about defending his designs, and noted that Dolce & Gabbana used a design he claimed as his own no less than 16 times on the runway: "I would understand if they were nobodies. But honestly!"

It's not every day that one high-end designer will accuse another of copying — the most recent similar event occurred in the early '90s, when Yves Saint Laurent successfully sued Ralph Lauren for copying a black tuxedo dress he had created 30 years earlier — and Armani threatened: "Now they are copying. Later, they will learn."

Quick to reply, Dolce & Gabbana fired back Monday in a statement: "Surely we still have much to learn.  But definitely not from him.  Stylistically, the Armani style is not, and has never been, an inspiration source for us and we stopped seeing his fashion shows years ago."  All this over a quilted pair of pants.
*image: source

>> Claudia Schiffer is likely no longer Chanel's girl, but she got the better end of the bargain with a two-for-one deal. Not only is she repeating as Salvatore Ferragamo's campaign girl for Spring 2009, but she's picking up two new campaigns — Dolce & Gabbana, which she's rumored to be doing with two other girls, including Mariacarla Boscono, and Yves Saint Laurent.  She's currently appearing in Dolce's Resort 2009 campaign with Maryna Linchuk and Catherine McNeil, so Spring is a logical continuation. As for the YSL appointment, if it can be judged by Naomi Campbell's Fall 2008 run, means we'll be seeing lots of Claudia wearing Yves Saint Laurent to events and maybe even a cover with Stefano Pilati.

Although it's too early in the casting season to be sure, it looks like brands are still willing to shell out those supermodel dollars for a recognizable face.
*image: source