Dsquared2 kicks off Milan menswear season with Sister Sledge

By

Godfrey Deeny

Published
Jan 11, 2020

Now that is what you call a fashion consecration.

 
Dsquared2 kicked off Milan menswear season on Friday night with a Rocky Mountain N Roll collection, as the house’s founders Dean and Dan Caten were serenaded at the finale by Sister Sledge.
 
The massive show was staged in a humongous tent on a south Milan railway line to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the brand. Giant screen projected highlights of the house, from mugging with supermodels like Eva or Gigi and dressing stars like Beyoncé, J. Lo, Madonna and Foo Fighters.

While another video displayed massive images of great ad campaigns, shot by the Gotha of fashion photography. The Canadian duo even produced a neat little collector's item booklet with images of multiple campaigns. One half by Steven Klein, a montage of naughty public school boy punker goes on the road and gets very lucky. And an equally fine series from Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott – musculature, fuzzy videos, flesh and saucy anguish on babes and hunks.
 
By the way, whenever they start handing out Nobel Prizes for fashion show production Thierry Dreyfus should get one for this event.

 
The actual runway collection was a dashing reinterpretation of the twins classic Italo-Canadian power pop style.
 
Lumberjack coats worn under mini puffers and paired with leather cowboy pants. Natty denim jackets and shirts over sewn with hunting waistcoats. Button-free sheepskin cardigans, and second-skin leather shirts ideal for clubbing - all for the boys.

In this co-ed show, the girls appeared in hyper distressed drainpipe jeans, flowing rock goddess shearling coats and bold hooded pea coats – often worn with mad trapper fur caps and hats.
 
The Catens have always been gutsy designers, with more chops than most, like the perfectly judged micro trenches sculpted into the sauciest of mini cocktails for girls. While a schoolyard of dudes walked in remarkable jeans, with fake double waistlines, as if they pants were about to fall off, but miraculously did not.

 
˝We are family, Dsquared2 family,˝ sang Sister Sledge, in a play on their most famous dance classic. Dean and Dan dancing with them down the 80-meter catwalk, dressed in matching all black crooner suits.
 
˝It’s been a ride an energy like a flame and we believe in it and you believed in us,˝ said the pair in the photo book, best summing up their impressive success made all the more remarkable by its improbability.
 
Two young hopefuls who sold half their possessions in Toronto to come to Italy in 1991, whom in a quarter of a century in as a brand built a quarter of a billion-euro business.
 
They really are family.