The image of Monica Bellucci at Dolce & Gabbana in Venice, 2002.

What could be better than Venice Film Festival 2023, this year is scheduled from August 30 to September 9, 2023 to hold plunge (fashion) into the past with one of the main characters of this festival? Flipping through the memory album of past releases, it was almost impossible not to fall for this photo.

It was 2002 This Monica Bellucci more diva than ever, she arrived at the Palazzo del Cinema in Venice to attend the award ceremony of director Dino Risi (to whom the actress owes her debut in Life with children) with the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 59th Venice Film Festival. On the red carpet of one of the oldest and most prestigious film events in Europe, which has always combined artistic value with glamorous charm. The actress amazed everyone by appearing in a Dolce & Gabbana lace dress

, an artistic duo with whom the diva has always been associated. A long and fitted bustier, which played with the sexy effect of nude underwear (very trendy this year) black bra straps, creating a captivating contrast with antique pink silk and meticulous lace and sequin embellishments on the train skirt. A masterpiece of tailoring and haute couture that reinterprets the corset in a luxurious way, an essential item of the 2000s and the workhorse of the Italian fashion house that made it the protagonist of the spring-summer 2002 collection and which continues to influence today and then. Charm. A dress with a vintage touch helps show off all the timeless femininity, grace and elegance of Bellucci, an icon of Italian cinema and fashion.

Monica Bellucci, Italian icon and diva

The actress, possessing this beauty, was in full glory. Not only the relationship with her husband Vincent Cassel, who met six years earlier on the set of the film. Apartment Gilles Mimouni flourished, but his career also took off. In fact, in 2000 she was the protagonist of one of the most beautiful films by Giuseppe Tornatore. Malena, which helps to define his status as an Italian icon. And in the same year, 2002, he appeared on the red carpet of Cannes with the film irreversible Gaspar Noe, a scandalous film that made critics and audiences talk a lot. In the following years, Bellucci was present in many works that went down in history, such as matrix, Asterix and Obelix: Mission Cleopatra, Remember me, Passion of Christ name a few. Despite the different roles played Bellucci’s stylistic code has always been emotionally moving, and perhaps this is what contributed to her becoming an Italian big screen icon, combining sexuality and motherhood, beauty and craftsmanship that made her desirable and created her myth. A myth that has paralleled fashion development thanks to her friendship with the Dolce & Gabbana stylists, who have always wanted her as a guest star on numerous catwalks to best embody the typical Mediterranean beauty that they have always sung about.