Living la Vita Dolce & Gabbana

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Back at the Via della Spiga store, the lunchtime rush is showing no sign of tailing off. Alberto Addis is straightening a shiny alligator bag that a customer has left askew, moving an eel-skin shoe back to its right place. There is no icy sense of “please do not touch” here; everything has been handled. “It's always like this,” Addis says. “Our customer, maybe she comes to buy, maybe to touch. It's O.K.”

Of course, the girl stroking a desired piece longingly today could be the customer for that $23,200 minidress tomorrow. And that's understood in an empire started, after all, by a pair who 20 years ago were themselves the kids with their noses pressed up against the glass.