Nothing can prepare a person for their first Dolce & Gabbana Alta Moda experience. While there is no such thing as a “typical” Alta Moda celebration, they all center around events in astonishing and exclusive locations—this year, in Puglia—with clients and celebrities from across the globe invited to preview (and to be the first to purchase) grandiose couture collections.

They started off as three-day affairs, though the clients got to liking it so much they simply wanted to stay. Days were added on, year after year, until the whole extravaganza turned into what Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana now only half-ironically call “Alta Moda Fashion Week.”