The sweeping staircase was a surprisingly stark set for a Dsquared² show, but Dean and Dan Caten insisted that, for their next 20 years, the spectacle will henceforth be concentrated in the clothes. They made a very good start with their presentation today.
Always ready, willing, and eager to reveal their Canadian roots in the most unlikely way, the twins went back to the Yukon with this collection. Not the Yukon of muscle-y Mounties and moose, the campy Canuck fantasia of their fashion past, but a place where, said Dean, a suitcase of clothes and jewels from Old Europe had fallen out of a plane over the icy tundra and been taken up by an Inuit tribe, who had incorporated the finery into their own tribal duds. It was the kind of febrile tale that Galliano once wove so well, and there was a smidgen of his erotic cross-cultural clash in the attenuated sass of women wearing tribal tattoos (body stockings), vast tundral pelts, and tasseled Napoleonic bullion braiding. Corset dresses, virginal draped nightdresses, and hyper-tailored little jackets spoke of high-flown civilization, while a hooded fur parka, a poncho, and a fringed blanket skirt were life on the ground. They sat together remarkably well.
The skinny pants with the pannier pockets rang the Ghesquière bell for some in the audience, but the Catens have always worked that silhouette, suspended on the highest heels. This time, however, their exhaustive research and elaborate, expensive detail was a huge step forward for them. It was all you could really wish for them, after years of hiding their light under a bushel of kitschy overload.
