Yes, they are still around. In fact, the brand has just staged their 30th anniversary show in full ghetto fabulousness. An uninspiring ’90s music video it was

When Dsquared2 exited our market sometime in 2019, it had, by then, lost much of its gay appeal, even among expressive gay boys. The whole Village People aesthetic was, by then, tired and ready to be tossed. If you weren’t satiated yet, you would soon be. Enough, it was for many, the pseduo-butch checks of ranch wear, fashioned to enhance the bodies of gym bunnies. Or, over-processed, over-loose denim jeans that appealed to off-duty shampoo boys with a mission to impress. While some straight men and their girlfriends thought the Italian label founded by two Canadians twins, Dean and Dan Caten, to be the epitome of fashion, it was, in fact, on stealthy decline in popularity, so much so that their flagship store at ION Orchard was where one went to swot the proverbial fly. Even staffers we knew then admitted that most days were “really quiet”. Fast forward to the present, and the brand is in their 30th year. A celebratory party-cum-show in Milan was in order.

Dsquared2 has largely dropped off our radar. Watching the show now, it amazed us how unchanged the brand has remained, just as their idol Dolce and Gabbana has too. The show was opened by American rapper Doechii. She stepped out of what could be an armoured vehicle, which stopped in a clichéd facsimile of a rough New York ’hood. She was fierce in a jumble of too-little clothes and too-many accessories. Suitably decorated, she, as the old saying goes, strutted her stuff—after throwing a wad of money on the ground for the man who opened the car door for her. The presentation was one fabulously turned-out gangsta type after another; even Tyson Beckford was casted for the flashy story-telling. The narrative, however, spoke not of today, but the imagined grittiness-meets-glamour of inner city life of the past. Or, hip-hop music come to life. The Catens were on familiar grounds, and they were proud of it.

A show that reflected an anniversary of 30 years required a look-back at past achievements. The Catens, thus, showed not only what they can do/have done, but also how much more over-the-top they can still be. Which means their old staples, such as said overwrought jeans, were now even more ridiculously ornate or complex (how many pairs were there in one look or how some could hang on hips without coming unworn?!). And those were the proper garments. Sexiness, also a Dsquared2 signature, required considerable show of skin. So, there were chaps worn on little else, trousers with cut-out derrieres, Y-fronts as anything-but-under, and naked dresses that Kim Kardashian would long for, but not Bianca Censori—not naked enough. There were the compulsory campiness—men in glittered platform heels. There was also queer humour galore. One pair of pants had, in the top rear, a mini white dress-shirt with bib front and a black tie that suggested a grin more ridiculous than a drunk Cheshire cat. Or homage to Chippendales? It would be tempting to consider all these as excessive, but they were not; they were indiscriminate.

Dsquared2 must be doing very well these past thirty years and is so financially endowed that the brand could squander one season’s show for a bash this scant on meaning or direction. It was a profligate toast to their own perceived greatness, with Naomi Campbell in a massive wig doing what she does best on a runway—closing the show by werking it. Except that it is not quite comprehensible why Ms Campbell is always enlisted whenever a brand needed to augment their shaky standing in what is becoming a precarious industry. Or is Ms Campbell a bellwether of fashion good tidings, the fairy godmother for those brands in need of a revival? For the traditional end-of-show bow, Brigitte Nielsen-as-a-dominatrix-cop, yanked the twins—tuxedo-ed and handcuffed—out of a squad car, like a ‘plot’ of a porn film, to introduce them to the audience. What was their crime? Hedonistic excess?

Screen shot (top) and photos: Dsquared2