Canadians Dean and Dan Caten of DSquared2 have taken the fashion world by storm.
If you witnessed Madonna in her rodeo-girl phase a few years ago, you'll know their clothes. Like those dirty, low-riding jeans she's wearing as she strides down the highway in the Don't Tell Me video. Or the rhinestone-studded leather chaps she bounced around in on the mechanical bull in her Drowned World tour. The Madonna coup is one part of DSquared2's growth in fame, which has been, as their name would suggest, exponential. The thing that makes DSquared2 story so irresistible is the little twist that marketing mandarins and PR pros dream of: a set of fun-loving Canadian identical twins called Dean and Dan Caten who move to Milan and conquer our fashion-hungry hearts.
“Honey!” purrs Dean, as they enter the room. The twins do not break into song this time as they are wont to do, buy they talk in layers, overlapping and intercepting each other's conversation. “We learned a lot from Madonna because she's really attentive to everything. We did these chaps with loads of diamonds and fringing for her and she said, “They're gorgeous, but I have to dance. See, I can lift my leg this far up with these on but I need to get it up this high, so I prefer the less-beautiful ones.” For Aguilera, (DSquared2 created the costumes for the Christina Aguilera and Justin Timberlake's joint tour) they designed a plunging black halter top and a pair of leather pants that have a fluorescent sunburst at the crotch that accentuates and hides all the right things. “She has small shoulders and a bit of a butt back then, “ they confide, “so she kind of had to focus on other things.”
A few years ago, DSquared2 designed Spice Girl Mel B's wedding dress, and they always have few things on the go with Lenny Kravitz. The boys unwound a bit before starting to work on the clothes for Aguilera and Timberlake (they attended a few parties in Cannes, then whipped down to St. Tropez for Naomi Campbell's birthday party.) Something decadent and gossip-worthy is always happening at a DSquared2 bash: British fashion editor Isabella Blow jumped into a pool fully clothed and hated at their last party at the Hotel Principe di Savoia in Milan.
