Kim Kardashian culls Dolce&Gabbana archives for Milan show

MILAN (AP) — Kim Kardashian took Milan by storm on Saturday, curating a new collection for Dolce&Gabbana that took inspiration from 20 years of archival looks.

It was a day of debuts in Milan, including Maximilian Davis, a 27-yeaer-old British designer with Afro-Caribbean roots, at the creative helm of Salvatore Ferragamo and Filipino American designer Rhuigi Villasenor at Bally, as the brand returns to the runway for the first time in 20 years.

Some highlights from the fourth day of Milan Fashion Week previews of mostly womenswear for next spring and summer:

KIM KARDASHIAN AND DOLCE & GABBANA: THE BACKSTORY

Kim Kardashian’s love of Dolce & Gabbana goes way back, and the affection showed in her curation of their latest collection, drawing on archival looks from 1987-2007.

She remembers growing up watching her mother dress in Dolce & Gabbana for date nights with her stepfather, recalling “she always looked so smart and so strong.” One year, Kardashian's borrowed one of her mom’s black Dolce & Gabbana dresses with a built-in bra and choker to wear for a family Christmas card, a look, she said, “I will never forget."

When Kardashian and her sisters owned a store, she borrowed her father’s credit card to buy a bunch of D&G dresses, jeans and belts before her paycheck came in.

Even the family dogs were named Dolce and Gabbana. Gabbana was a black labrador, Dolce a tiny chihuahua.

“It is very close to reality,’’ Stefano Gabbana quipped in a presentation for the new collection.

But no matter how hard she tried, even deploying her mother, Kris Jenner, to help make her case, the designers refused to open their archives. “The past is the past,’’ Domenico Dolce explained. “We try to go ahead with the new...