Italian designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana were so upset about an upcoming Vanity Fair feature on their tax woes, they threatened to pull tens of millions in advertising from Condé Nast and demanded Vogue editor Anna Wintour get the story killed.
The designers were found guilty of tax fraud on $1 billion in earnings last year in Italy and fined $470 million, plus sentenced to 18 months in jail.
Vanity Fair, sources tell Page Six, is currently planning a story on the duo’s legal woes and court battle. (They’re currently appealing.)
But when Dolce and Gabbana got wind of VF’s in-the-works piece, they called Vogue Editor-in Chief and Condé Nast artistic director Wintour to get it killed.
The designers even threatened to pull all their advertising from Condé titles, which insiders estimate to be worth $10 million to $20 million in business between D&G’s fashion and beauty campaigns.
Wintour, our source said, declined their request. But the fashion queen did fly to Capri last month, with Vogue writer Hamish Bowles and others, for D&G’s extravagant Alta Moda show on the shores of Capri for exclusive coverage.
Guests were ferried to the show and a dinner afterward on a “flotilla of little sailboats that had their prows garlanded with swags of lemon and bay leaf,” Bowles wrote of the scene, adding the clothes were “extraordinarily lavish” with “insouciant throwaway chicness.” And “it really was stirringly beautiful.”
Sources told us Wintour also got face time with the designers, “as a way of appeasing them without mortgaging the journalistic integrity of Condé Nast over killing the piece.” A source added, “She went to save the advertising.”
We’re told D&G continues to advertise in Condé’s glossies, including GQ, Allure, Details, Vogue and Condé Nast Traveler — but the brand, coincidentally, doesn’t advertise in Vanity Fair.
A rep for Vanity Fair told us: “We don’t comment on whether we are or are not working on a story.” Vogue declined to comment. A rep for Dolce & Gabbana didn’t get back to us.