Dolce & Gabbana to 5th

Luxury fashion website Net-a-porter.com and it’s menswear equivalent Mr Porter turned hosts for the evening to throw a party in honour of legendary Italian design duo Dolce & Gabbana at their swanky offices at the Westfield shopping centre in London. A whole host of stylish stars came out to party in celebration of the fashion house’s collections hitting the e-boutiques for the very first time, including Dolce & Gabbana ambassador, supermodel Naomi Campbell, who rocked a green animal print cocktail dress by the label and chic black accessories.

The 15-year Dolce & Gabbana lease could be valued at just under $300 million, sources said. Ground-floor retail asking rents in the area are $2,250 a foot, according to the spring report from the Real Estate Board of New York.

Sutton, Dolce & Gabbana and Escada reps could not be reached, while SL Green declined comment.

While Dolce & Gabbana has a store on Madison and its lower priced D&G line on Lafayette Street, the designing duo has never cracked the key luxury shopping stretch of Fifth Avenue that runs from 57th Street to Rockefeller Center.

Rather than joining the mass retailer pricing of nearby Forever 21, Uniqlo, Abercrombie & Fitch and H&M -- the latter two of which Sutton also installed -- the new Dolce & Gabbana store will be pure luxury. Escada will close its current store by the end of the year and reopen when its new 10,000-square-foot space is complete.