It takes guts to open your collection with the agonizing sound of a plane crash, but Dean and Dan Caten have never been shrinking violets. Anyway, they had to set up their mise-en-scène of a trio of boykini-clad castaways languishing on a desert island. It was as fully realized as all the Catens' scenarios have been—the downed plane carcass, the waterfall, the encroaching jungle—but it was ultimately as distracting as all those other productions. At some point, you want to throw up your hands and cry, "Boys, give us clothes, not camp!"
But such a plea is meaningless in the light of the Catens' addiction to the business of show. And actually, it was clothes that paraded down the wood-chip-laid catwalk. They delivered everything their army of fans crave—tailored jackets, artful denims, leathers, military flourishes—but they are commercially astute enough that it wasn't quite the same as last time. For example, we'd never seen an outfit as languidly odd as the leather blouson in mint green paired with polka-dot silk pajama pants. That was a new proposal in the Catens' Studly Dudley repertoire.
The desert island scenario was ultimately more tiki bar than Lost. Like the raffia tiki appliqué on a tee, or the King Kong graphic on a leather-sleeve blouson, or the macramé polo. The unflagging, 12-packed, chunky-thighed good cheer of the whole thing was carried through to the aw-shucks end when tux-clad nippers took a bow in the place of the twins themselves. The audience left with a smile on their faces and a show tune on their lips. A good time was had by all.
