The Dog Takes Over

A small dog inheriting a fashion empire is funny because it’s not actually that different from how fashion works already.

Salvatore Reviu was some kind of Italian fashion magnate who, on his deathbed, decided everything should go to Domenico—his lap dog. The campaign comes with videos where different people tell different versions of how this happened, each one supposedly true, each one obviously not. You’re watching ads pretend to be documentaries pretend to be rumors.

So now a dog runs the brand. Designers show up with sketches, marketing people present their campaigns, fabric arrives, collections ship, magazines publish features. Everything moves the same way it did before, except the person at the top doesn’t understand human language.

Which is maybe more honest than the usual setup. Fashion has always been held together by everyone agreeing to treat completely arbitrary things with absolute seriousness. A dog could do that. Better, even—at least the dog wouldn’t pretend it understands what’s happening. You’d get a clear answer. That’s more than most executives give you.