Long before fashion weeks started splintering, Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana set up their own haute couture ecosystem in Italy, immediately spying potential for male clients.

Six years after their first Alta Sartoria collection paraded through Palazzo Labus in Milan, the designers say men make up fully half of their couture clientele, numbering more than 200 people in Asia, the U.S., Europe, India, Russia and South America, in particular Mexico and Brazil.