Madonna steals the spotlight at Dolce & Gabbana's Milan Fashion Week runway show

MILAN (AP) — Madonna made a star appearance in Dolce & Gabbana’s front row during Milan Fashion Week on Saturday for a collection that felt like a conversation with the Material Girl herself.

To the backdrop of her hit “You’ll See,” Madonna and her boyfriend Akeem Morris were ushered to their seats next to Vogue’s Anna Wintour just as the Fall-Winter 2026-27 show was about to begin. Other front row guests couldn’t resist recording the moment as she hugged actor Alberto Guerra, with whom she recently shot a Dolce & Gabbana campaign.

Madonna, 67, has been a Dolce & Gabbana icon since the 1990s, with key moments including a bodice studded with colored stones and crystals for the 1991 New York preview of the film “Truth or Dare.”

The designing duo also created costumes for the Erotica tour in 1992 and the Drowned World Tour in 2001.

Madonna last appeared at the Dolce & Gabbana showroom for the Spring-Summer 2025 collection, wearing a lace veil. This time, her infamous blonde locks were loose. She wore a black blazer over a dark minidress, with the only pop of color coming from turquoise leather gloves.

Designer Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana’s collection for next fall and winter featured transparent lace dresses reminiscent of Madonna’s early aesthetic and big-shouldered pinstriped suits that recalled her Vogue music video. The collection also featured big faux furs and animal prints.

Models gave a little twirl in front of Madonna and Wintour, making sure they caught the mirrored double-breasted suits with lapels on both the front and the back. Both style-makers wore dark sunglasses as they squatted in the low front-row seats, Madonna wrapping her arms around her legs. Attentive during the show, they privately exchanged impressions at the end.

After the show, the designers embraced the Queen of Pop and whisked her backstage.

Outside, hundreds of fans gathered to catch Madonna and other stars who packed the front row.

A model wears a creation from the Dolce & Gabbana Fall/Winter 2026-2027 Women's collection, presented in Milan, Italy, Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

A model wears a creation from the Dolce & Gabbana Fall/Winter 2026-2027 Women's collection, presented in Milan, Italy, Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

A model wears a creation from the Dolce & Gabbana Fall/Winter 2026-2027 Women's collection, presented in Milan, Italy, Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

Madonna congratulates Stefano Gabbana at the end of the Dolce & Gabbana Fall/Winter 2026-2027 Women's collection, presented in Milan, Italy, Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

Madonna congratulates Domenico Dolce, right, and Stefano Gabbana at the end of the Dolce & Gabbana Fall/Winter 2026-2027 Women's collection, presented in Milan, Italy, Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan’s military, backed by artillery and air power, struck more military installations deep inside Afghanistan overnight after Pakistan said it was in “open war” with its eastern neighbor.

Pakistan on Saturday claimed more than 330 Afghan forces had been killed since fighting erupted Thursday night during a broad Afghan cross-border attack into Pakistan. Afghanistan rejected the figures as false.

The casualty figures provided by either side could not be independently confirmed.

The fighting was in response to Pakistani airstrikes in Afghanistan last Sunday. Pakistan said it was targeting the outlawed Pakistani Taliban, or TTP. The group is separate but closely allied with Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban. Afghanistan, however, said only civilians were killed in Sunday's airstrike.

After the Afghan attack, Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif declared Friday: “Our patience has now run out. Now it is open war between us.”

Pakistani Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said Saturday that more than 331 Afghan forces had been killed and over 500 others wounded during the ongoing military strikes in Afghanistan. Pakistan destroyed 102 Afghan posts, captured 22 others and destroyed 163 tanks and armored vehicles at 37 locations, he said.

Kabul has dismissed the casualty claim as inaccurate.

On Saturday, the Afghan Defense Ministry claimed that Afghan forces killed 110 Pakistani soldiers during ongoing fighting. Enayatullah Khawarazmi, a ministry spokesman, wrote on X that Afghan forces also captured 27 Pakistani posts.

There was no immediate response from Islamabad.

Pakistan’s army spokesperson Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said on Friday that 12 Pakistani soldiers were killed in the fighting.

The Afghan government's deputy spokesman, Hamdullah Fitrat, on Saturday accused Pakistan of targeting civilian areas in the provinces of Paktika, Khost, Kunar, Nangarhar and Kandahar, as well as refugee camps in Torkham and Kandahar. Fitrat said 52 people had been killed, most of them women and children, and 66 others wounded.

Meanwhile, the United Nations wrote on X that major cities in Afghanistan were reportedly bombed by the Pakistani military on Friday, marking a new escalation and raising fears for civilians already struggling under the harsh rule of the Taliban authorities.

On Friday, Afghan government spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said 13 Afghan forces were killed and 22 wounded. He also said 55 Pakistani soldiers were killed. Pakistan put its own military figures at 12 killed, 27 wounded and one soldier missing in action.

Pakistan’s state-run media reported the country’s air force carried out strikes targeting key military installations in various areas of eastern Afghanistan.

According to Pakistani authorities, hundreds of residents living near the northwestern Torkham border crossing had fled. In recent days, Pakistan has also deported dozens of Afghan refugees to Torkham.

Ejaz Ul Haq, an Afghan refugee stranded near the Torkham border with his family, said he could not return to Afghanistan because of the fighting. Many others were struggling to obtain food during the fasting month of Ramadan, he said.

Afghanistan's Defense Ministry on Saturday said Afghanistan attacked Pakistani military bases in Miranshah and Spin Wam overnight, destroying military installations and causing heavy casualties in response to the ongoing airstrikes by Pakistan.

In eastern Afghanistan, the Department of Information and Culture accused Pakistan of targeting civilian areas, destroying homes and killing at least 11 people. There was no immediate response from Pakistan, which has said it is targeting only military installations.

Mullah Taj Mohammad Naqshbandi, a commissioner on the Afghan side of the Torkham border, said in a statement Saturday that the “brave forces of the Islamic Emirate destroyed the Pakistani military regime’s commissariat, military units, and three important security towers.”

On Friday, the Afghan government said 55 Pakistani soldiers were killed during its strikes and Afghan losses were far lower than Pakistan claimed.

Mujahid, the Afghan government spokesman, said Friday that the country's attacks on Pakistani military targets were meant as “a message that our hands can reach their throats and that we will respond to every evil act of Pakistan.” He added that “Pakistan has never sought to resolve problems through dialogue.”

Pakistan has frequently accused Kabul of sheltering the TTP, allegations the group and Afghanistan’s Taliban government deny.

Pakistan’s army spokesman Chaudhry said Friday the Afghan government had to choose “TTP or Pakistan.”

Tensions have been high since October, when dozens of soldiers, civilians and suspected militants were killed in border clashes. A Qatari-mediated ceasefire ended the intense fighting that month, but several rounds of peace talks in Turkey in November failed to produce a lasting agreement. The two sides have occasionally traded fire since then, though the ceasefire had largely held until last week, when Pakistan struck what it described as TTP hideouts.

Since then, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, China and several other countries are again attempting to defuse tensions by offering mediation.

Qatar’s minister of state, Mohammed bin Abdulaziz Al-Khulaifi, spoke Friday with the foreign ministers of Afghanistan and Pakistan in an effort to de-escalate tensions, Qatar’s Foreign Ministry said in a post on X.

Abdul Qahar Afghan reported from Kabul, Afghanistan. Associated Press writers Riaz Khan and Rasool Dawar in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this report.

People gather around the coffin of an army soldier, killed in the cross-border clashes of Pakistan and Afghan forces, during a funeral prayer in a village in Lakki Marwat, a district of Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/G.A. Marwat)

Trucks carrying Afghan refugees and their belongings are parked along roadside in a safer place following cross-border clashes between Pakistan and Afghan forces, at near Torkham border crossing point, Pakistan, Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Maaz Awan)

People attend funeral prayer of an army soldier, killed in the cross-border clashes of Pakistan and Afghan forces, at a village in Lakki Marwat, a district of Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/G.A. Marwat)

Smoke emits from Afghan side as trucks are parked along roadside following cross-border clashes between Pakistan and Afghan forces, at near Torkham border crossing point, Pakistan, Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Maaz Awan)

People carry the coffin of an army soldier, killed in the cross-border clashes of Pakistan and Afghan forces, for his funeral prayer at a village in Lakki Marwat, a district of Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/G.A. Marwat)