DSquared2's party planning rules

By

Godfrey Deeny

Published
Jun 17, 2019

No brand in Milan seems more optimistic this season than DSquared2, whose Bruce Lee-inflected collection was a great expression of martial, after midnight, mode.

The house celebrated the show with a vamping party, staged in a “garden” right outside the battered Milan factory location that was the perfect company to this spring/summer 2020 collection.
 
"Garden" we place in inverted commas, since the space was a wrecked old yard, cunningly finished with large swatches of fake grass. The party, nonetheless, had oodles of energy, just like these clothes.

The thing about this brand’s design duo of Dan and Dean Caten is that they have stayed young, almost perennially so. They hang out in clubs, parties and after-hours so they know instinctively what young people want to wear when they go out for a night.
 

For spring, DSquared2 are right in sync with the whole post-colonial mood that is gripping Milan. Dolce & Gabbana showed British expeditionary-force chic on Saturday and Prada featured acres of khaki in its men’s show in Shanghai.

Dean and Dan, but of course, had the most fun with the concept – opening with military shorts; cut-out army boots and a memorable parka with a fantastic print of tigers and peacock feathers in a tropical spring.
 
Dudes and gangster poseurs have been wearing boxer shorts over the tops of their pants for a couple of decades, but once again the Catens made the idea fresh with a funky preppie version; exotic chinoiserie-print boxers peeping over indigo jeans or 'Bridge Over the River Kwai' fatigue pants. Their electric blue version of a Soviet MiG fighter jumpsuit was also great, as was their tiger print parka; happening, hustling humour to make a cool fashion statement.

With Rio Negro or Saiko tracks pumping out of the giant sound system, the gents suddenly sent out a score of women’s looks; notably a statuesque new black model, in a gold-corseted leotard and Restoration duellist’s jacket. Naomi, you have been warned, you finally have a successor.
 
Like the boys, several girls wore Bruce Lee movie poster t-Shirts and tops, summing up the mood of the show, collection and house: flaunt-it-while-you-got-it panache.

And, just as Lee changed the way that Westerners thought of Asia and Asians, this collection will ever so subtly alter the way Asians will think about Italian fashion.