Dean and Dan Caten of Dsquared know a thing or two about mixing and matching. Not only did the 40-year-old identical twins leave their native Canada in 1991 for Italy, the homeland of their paternal grandmother (Caten is short for Catenacci, while the maternal side is English), they've managed to turn the fashion world on its head with a ballsy blend of American pop culture and superior Italian tailoring.
The Milan debut of their men's line in 1994 garnered fans such as Lenny Kravitz, Justin Timberlake and Ricky Martin for its cheeky, MTV-ready ebullience paired with precision craftsmanship. Soon thereafter, the duo further solidified their fashion credibility by creating the costumes for Madonna's 'Don't Tell Me' video and the cowboy segment of her 2002 Drowned World tour, as well as the outfits for Christina Aguilera's 2003 Stripped tour (the diminutive diva was later recruited to walk the catwalk for the spring/summer 2005 men's collection).
The launch of a women's line in 2003 saw supermodels Naomi Campbell, Eva Herzigova, Karolina Kurkova and Fernanda Tavares saunter out of a pink private jet in unapologetically sex-charged regalia. For autumn/winter 2005, the brothers, who spent their childhoods as born-again Christians, looked to a higher power with skinny ties stitched with 'John 3:16', caps and T-shirts printed with the word Angel' and sweaters emblazoned with 'Jesus Loves Me' or, on one notable cardigan, Jesus Loves Even Me'. Apparently, even fashion designers know God is in the details, a well-worn principle that, along with recent backing from the Italian conglomerate Diesel, has shot sales for the erstwhile party boys into the heavens. It seems the Caten twins have finally found their square roots.
Posted in: Famous Fashion Designers
