Dsquared2 Goes Back to the Beginning.
There’s something disarming about seeing fashion stripped of the fashion.
For its latest campaign, Back to the Roots, Dsquared2 turns the lens away from spectacle and towards something far more personal: Dean and Dan Caten themselves.
No elaborate narrative. No attempt to build another world around a collection. Instead, a sequence of intimate photographs traces the twin brothers from childhood to the present, capturing them smiling, embracing and standing side by side. The images are simple, but that’s precisely the point.
This time, the story isn’t really about clothes. It’s about the two people behind them.
Born into a large family in Canada, Dean and Dan built Dsquared2 from the ground up, eventually taking their shared vision to Milan and turning it into one of fashion’s most recognisable names. More than three decades later, Back to the Roots looks beyond the brand's mythology to the relationship that existed long before it.
At its centre is brotherhood.
“We wanted this campaign to reflect who we truly are, which is why we chose deeply personal photographs that genuinely represent us,” Dean and Dan explain. “Dsquared2 would never have existed without the unwavering support we’ve given each other since we were kids. This campaign is our tribute to the past and our promise for the future.”
It’s a surprisingly vulnerable move from a label synonymous with provocation, excess and a certain unapologetic sense of theatre. Here, all of that falls away. What remains are two brothers and the history they share.
And perhaps that’s what makes the campaign work.
Back to the Roots doesn’t treat the past as somewhere to retreat to. It uses it as a reminder of what was there before the shows, campaigns and international recognition: two people backing each other and an idea they decided to pursue together.
Thirty years on, Dsquared2 isn’t reinventing itself.
It’s remembering where it came from.
For Back to the Roots, Dsquared2 leaves the spectacle behind. Dean and Dan Caten turn the lens on themselves, tracing a story of brotherhood, resilience and the bond behind more than three decades of Dsquared2.