Dsquared2 Resort 2023 - Milan

One of the lagging trends of the last five years, is the street wear fusion ala mix and match thrifts styles or the casually chic and effortless looks.   Hard to achieve on the runway without pretention, equally harder to emulate stylizations seen on attendees at the various fashion weeks.  But of late, post-pandemic, street styles and the individual aspects of at least some bearing aesthetically of a counter culture, seem to have dissipated. 

Canadian designers, identical twins and entrepreneurs Dean and Dan Catenacci, who launched their brand DSQUARED2 in 1994 and nine years later they debuted their for runway in 2003, have been in the fashion game for quite awhile.  And although they are no newcomers to an industry, which churns through independent fashion brands and their creative directors with a ruthless abandonment.  The Catenacci's or Caten's as they are formally known, have stayed the course and rallied a plethora of celebrities' and A-listers to adorn their styles over the 28 years of the brand's timeline.  To which it has paid off for the Canten's since expanding the Dsquared2 brand into fragrances, eyewear and opening a restaurant in Milan, where the two brothers are based.  They have since hired ex-Tod footwear Managing director Sergio Azzolari as their new CEO, to ensure that the Dsquared2 maintains its expansion in a very competitive market.  With supply chains and rising costs affecting all, it will be interesting to see if the Canten's can hold onto their 200 million Euro a year brand.

Dsquared2 is very much of that 1990's stylization, when street wear began to merge onto the runways as the new chic, playing with slogan rip-offs and popular culture emulation, that for the most part originated on the streets of Los Angeles and New York.  Owing itself to the emerging rap artists and skateboarders of the said era, Dsquared2 over the years was able to corner the luxury market of designer street wear, but may have lost some of its imprint as newer designers have taken the lead in creating niche urban aesthetics.  

So, seeing the Canten's return back to a more risqué of looks, which as they have titled the "Dark Goth Surfers" styles for their Resort 2023 collection, keeps Dsquared2 relevant, as the brothers work best when the delve into science fiction, dystopia and one of the trends of 2020, Goth.   Why not combine them all?   

Do their latest Resort styles reflect that Dsquared2  risqué?   Well, unfortunately they don't.  In fact the collection feels restrained and toned down, with a mix of  90's esque street looks and Japanese Harajuku styles, gives the collection a slight distinction, but falls short of originality.  Which is a shame as the titling of the collection of a surfing goth could have  allowed for a more darker and striking array.  Say, as a theme of surfer goths hanging out at the beach after a nuclear war.