At Dsquared2, Clothes Fit for ‘Zoolander’

I lost track of the number of cars. I lost track of the number of sparkly fringed leather chaps. I lost track of the number of butts hanging out.

About a third of the way through the Dsquared2 fashion show in Milan on Tuesday evening, I lost my ability to keep track of anything. This event, celebrating the company’s 30th anniversary, was a fashion show whose sheer fashion showiness left me unable to form coherent thoughts.

Where to begin? Perhaps with the D.J. situated inside a giant disco ball or the Dsquared2-dressed cheering section flanking the runway. Or perhaps the brick facade backdrop, which I took as some sort of homage to “West Side Story,” but which a street sign helpfully informed me was actually “Fashion Avenue.” My mistake.

My thoughts of “Wait, what am I witnessing?” grew as I watched the rapper NLE Choppa fling his puffer toward the audience and a model on roller skates do a death drop. A woman came out with a bow tie affixed to her backside like a capsized Chippendales costume; another’s dress was slit up the side, leaving not a thing to the imagination. Tyson Beckford went by. Then Irina Shayk. Then Alex Consani, Amelia Gray Hamlin, Naomi Campbell.

There came a pair of male models in leather boots, pants and flat caps — pure Tom of Finland drag. A model exited a New York City taxi cab; another, a pickup; a third rolled in on the hood of a convertible. I started to worry about carbon monoxide poisoning.

Out came a fur hat the size of a mini-fridge and a leather thong so abbreviated that it was essentially a belt. Pants sat so low that butt cracks became banal. A gold pastie protected a model from a wardrobe malfunction.

Men wore glittery platform boots — perfect, I thought, for Kiss. The second I thought that, out came three models with Kiss makeup plastered on their faces. That was followed by a fringed Kiss T-shirt. Dsquared2 is about as subtle as a platform boot to the face.

So much happened that by the show’s conclusion I didn’t initially realize it was Brigitte Nielsen, dressed as a cop in skintight leather pants, who led the Dsquared2 founders, the Canadian twin brothers Dean and Dan Caten, out of a police car, its siren shrieking, and onto the runway for their bow.

You would think that would be the grand finale. Oh, please. Then out came the rapper Doechii, fresh off a Grammy win, to perform as the Caten brothers, dressed in three-piece suits and platform boots, danced with the models.

I stood, stunned but smirking. Could I find a coherent through-line in anything I had just watched? Not exactly. Would I endorse wearing most of these clothes? Probably not. Was this the most “Zoolander” fashion show I had ever been to? Most certainly. And I was glad for it.

Fashion shows today, with their stone-faced models, prim clothes and indie-cred soundtracks can feel so funereal. Dsquared2’s show was not that. (Interestingly, though, this show was staged against a somber backdrop. Per an email sent in advance, the Caten brothers dedicated it to “Julie,” their muse who, it said, was nearing the end of a decades-long battle with Parkinson’s disease.)

The Catens have been honing an unabashed skin-baring, glammed-up, good taste-flouting aesthetic since before anyone ever heard of Britney Spears — and certainly well before that look spun back into fashion.

To my eyes, this show found the Catens staring down the criticism that, yes, all that excess and porny logos and to-the-rear jeans and cleavage-baring tops and music that thumps as if Studio 54 were still open can be ridiculous.

But also, come on, can’t you admit that it’s also kind of fun?