Show Report
For Spring/Summer 2011, the curtains opened on a scene straight from American Gigolo.
You can't help but wonder if there's an agreement between DSquared2 and the Camera Nazionale Della Moda Italia - we give you the chunky final(ish) slot on a packed Milan schedule, you jolt the crowd awake with a bit of razzmatazz. If it's not quite as plain as that, it's at least a tacit understanding - and the high-octane, full-throttle fun of DSquared2 show is the perfect prescription to a pep up any crowd, even a jaded tent filled with fashion hacks. For Spring/Summer 2011, the curtains opened on a scene straight from American Gigolo - a polished, neutral-dominated apartment with Lauren Hutton-styled model and rakish gent caught in flagrante.
Welcome to the DSquared2 mise-en-scène: if everyone else has been doing relaxed tailoring reminiscent of Armani's epoch-defining costuming of Richard Gere as Julian Kay, you could always count on Dean and Dan Caten to make it explicit. 'Explicit' was the word that leapt to mind a few times, with porno-chic bandbox-stripe bathing suits and boxer short, plunging silk shirts and buttock-gripping jeans. It's always a challenge at DSquared2 to dig through the theatrics and find the clothes underneath. But, this time, if you could look beyond the gyrating denim buttocks, snug shouldered shirts and flushed abs of a model performing anti-gravity sit-ups on an iron bar (you couldn't make that up), it was a pressed, preppy and remarkably clean-cut vision. These boys are Americans in Italy (well, Canadians, but let's not split hairs), and that was just the mix that made the American Gigolo's costumes quite so potent in the first place. DSquared2 has never been about Armani-esque tailoring - hence, rather than rehashing those suits, they filched a few colours from Rodeo Drive - Hermes orange, Tiffany Blue and that strident Giorgio Beverley Hills yellow - pumped them steroids and used them to colour a few standard-issue casual separates. Lots of shorts, lots of t-shirts, lots of single-breasted suit jackets knowingly cut a little too tight, and a few pairs of high-waist jeans to boot (boot-cut, that is).
And what virile, virulent, vociferous aftershave would the highest-paid lover in Beverly Hills wear? Get ready to choke on this one: DSquared2's fragrance 'Wood', of course! It all sounds just too much, but as no-frills no-brains no-hold-barred fun, it was once again bang on the money. This is DSquared2, after all. And just like Julian, their business is pleasure.
