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.

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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.