A model shows a creation from Italian designer duo Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana at 2016 Alta Moda high fashion show in Naples.

However their main muse is Loren, the first Italian actress to win an Oscar in 1962 and the first artist to win an Academy Award for a foreign-language movie.

It is Loren who chose Naples for the event.

"She wanted Naples," says Dolce, because it is the town that formed her, and became the backdrop of many of her movies.

When the 81-year-old Loren walked into the street accompanied by Dolce and Gabbana, the local people, babies and grannies, hung from apartment windows and lined every available rooftop to cheer, applaud and chant "Sophia".

She was seated on a velvet throne, waving to the crowds, with her grandson, his wife and their children on either side.

A girl ran out from an ice cream store to present her with a fan, since the weather was a bit humid. She smiled, accepted it and passed it to her grand-daughter. The owner of the ice cream store again ran to give her one more fan.

Before the show, when a brass band－comprising senior musicians playing Neapolitan tunes－paraded in front of her, she joined in the singing of every song including O sole mio.