Dolce and Gabbana accused of €1bn tax fraudDesigners face up to five years in jail if sent for trial, but prosecutor's request goes largely unreported in Italy
it has been called the potential "[tax] evasion of the century". But only once.
On 19 November, a Milan prosecutor asked for two of the most famous names in fashion – Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana – to be put on trial. But there has been barely a murmur about it in the Italian press.
Dolce, Gabbana and their company are accused of dodging tax on income of more than €1bn (£850m) – an amount that dwarfs the sums in previous Italian celebrity tax scandals.
The affair is potentially highly embarrassing for the "Gilbert and George of Italian fashion", a duo whose sexy, baroque, often gilded designs have won the admiration and loyalty of celebrities including Victoria Beckham and Madonna.
Dolce and Gabbana are charged with defrauding the state over their taxes. If sent for trial, they risk being jailed for up to five years.
News of the prosecutor's request – which now goes before a judge – might therefore have been expected to be front-page news in Italy, and a staple for discussion on chatshows and in the paparazzi gossip mags.
But Corriere della Sera, Milan's leading newspaper, gave the story 126 words. La Stampa thought it deserved 87. La Repubblica, a third big Italian daily, ignored it altogether.
And since it was barely reported in the Italian press, the story was missed by all but the specialist fashion media elsewhere, the sole exception in Britain being an online newspaper site.
It was much the same story in May 2009 when news of the impending investigation was first broken on the front page of Il Giornale, the Milan-based paper owned by the family of Italy's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi
www.guardian.co.uk
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