Quiet luxury lovers, look away, for there was nothing subtle in the loud and bold show Dean and Dan Caten put together for spring.
In keeping with their back-to-origins momentum reignited earlier this year — when the Dsquared2 founders went full-on with the Y2K rewind of all the codes they’ve established over the past two decades — the Catens delivered a sexy and irreverent collection for spring 2024 clashing the naughty and the preppy in their signature style mash-ups. For the occasion, they tapped Julia Fox, Italy’s most famous porn actor Rocco Siffredi and top model Esther Cañadas to rock the looks. Confused much?
The overarching narrative the designers imagined was a Palm Springs “kind of country club meeting adult entertainment,” they said backstage.
A short video montage of bits taken from Siffredi’s old movies kicked-off the show, setting the mood of the collection and prepping the audience for what it was in for. As the film ended, curtains opened to a stage where Siffredi was seen playing a director on set, guiding a movie star hidden behind a foldable screen and later revealed to be Fox.
In between his instructions, models crossed the stage to parade looks that mixed golf- and tennis-inspired aesthetics with Dsquared2’s sexy denim, minidresses and glitzy embellishments.
Pearl necklaces were turned into a barely-there top swinging from under a navy double-breasted jacket and styled with a micro tennis skirt; argyle cardigans were retooled into a minidress with the neckline mimicking knotted sleeves; a corset frock patchworked different types of mannish striped shirts, finished off with a popped up collar.
Riffing on the “Old Money” TikTok trend, the mood continued in menswear, where rich kid-looking models paired their pastel-hued sweaters knotted on shoulders with washed denim pants featuring cut-out stars; styled shrunken knit polos with low-slung pants; matched tweed jackets with basketball shorts, and cheekily boasted plenty of underwear — be it sparkling briefs or white boxers reading “Siffredi Hard Academy.” Some of them were also revealed via zippers on the back of denim pants in a cut reprised from the Dsquared2 archives.
Colorful prints, a cameo of the Rolling Stones’ logo popping on sliced tanks and a Donna Summer soundtrack added to the flashy spectacle, that in all its irreverence and raunchy nods didn’t lack fun and entertainment.
Before Cañadas closed the show in an extra hot one-shoulder black gown with plunging side slit — reminding the crowd why she’s one of the OG top models — Fox and Siffredi took the runway, as well. The former wore a pristine lingerie minidress, the latter — who also collaborated on some of the collection’s accessories — in a red t-shirt, navy blazer jacket and denim pants that he teased unbuttoning.
After all, sex sells. At Dsquared2, it entertains too.