Dean and Dan Caten have always been fashion's most entertaining double
act, propelled by barbed tongues, drag hilarity, and an appetite for
camp so unholy it has often obscured just how much they've actually
achieved. "We sold almost 5,000 suits last season," crowed Dean on a
walk round their massive Milan headquarters yesterday. Via Ceresio 9 is a
temple to their ambition. It's where they have consolidated all their
activities: floor after floor of everything relating to the design,
production, and promotion of fashion, and then, on the roof, a pleasure
dome as stately as anything decreed by Kubla Khan, with his-and-his
swimming pools.
Wait, didn't Andy Warhol turn a building into the
expression of an aesthetic? Snap! The Dsquared² men's Spring show was
called Stud2io. It was the twins' twist on Warhol's Factory, and it
marked a timely move away from the increasingly overwrought psychodramas
that were becoming such a drag (and not in a good way).
Not that this morning's show wasn't a spectacle in the grand Caten tradition. It was just more…er…restrained, though how can you say such a thing about a presentation whose soundtrack began with Edie Sedgwick trembling on the edge of a breakdown, and whose passing parade came to a close with a ludicrously perfect male specimen in the merest suggestion of a hot-pink Speedo? But in reality, the Catens taking on a Warhol subtext lent their collection a solid through-line, with enough graphic high points to merit a show-of-the-day gong.
Not that this morning's show wasn't a spectacle in the grand Caten tradition. It was just more…er…restrained, though how can you say such a thing about a presentation whose soundtrack began with Edie Sedgwick trembling on the edge of a breakdown, and whose passing parade came to a close with a ludicrously perfect male specimen in the merest suggestion of a hot-pink Speedo? But in reality, the Catens taking on a Warhol subtext lent their collection a solid through-line, with enough graphic high points to merit a show-of-the-day gong.
Warhol was the Pope of Pop, and the twins grabbed
his brightly colored ball and ran with it all the way to the pink
Speedo. The artist's candy-colored camo patterned a nylon shorts suit;
his cat drawings provided the motif of a buy-it-now sweatshirt (fuzzy
inside out). Who's to say there wasn't wit in a gray marl T-shirt that
read "ANDY" where you'd usually expect to see "ARMY"? Warhol acolyte
Stephen Sprouse's graffiti prints and fluoros were winningly co-opted by
the Catens, but when imitation comes from a place of love, again, who
are we to judge?
Incidentally, the Adonis in the Speedo posed center stage, life-class-style, for the entire show. And that is at least one thing Andy would have respected in the Catens: Their reverence for the male body beautiful.
Incidentally, the Adonis in the Speedo posed center stage, life-class-style, for the entire show. And that is at least one thing Andy would have respected in the Catens: Their reverence for the male body beautiful.
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