DSQUARED2 STAGES THE MOUNTAIN, THEN UNDRESSES IT

Cold was the concept, and the confession. In Milan, Dsquared2 staged Fall/Winter 2026 as a winter fever dream: a mountain narrative smuggled into the city, with an atmosphere that shifted from haze to clarity. It felt like a restart, not the polite kind, but the kind you do at full speed.

CANADA CALLS MILAN

Dean and Dan Caten went back to their Canadian DNA and turned it into a cast of characters rather than a mood board: hockey boys, slope addicts, rodeo renegades, après-ski nostalgists. The result was intentionally theatrical, yet rooted in recognizable codes: hockey jerseys over ski base layers; oversized puffers that read like street uniforms; knitted sets nodding to ’70s chalet life, then sharpened into something more urban, more feral. The show also landed squarely in Milan’s broader conversation this season, with winter-sport imagery everywhere as the Milano Cortina Olympics loom close enough to shape silhouettes as much as slogans.

PROTECTION IS THE SILHOUETTE; SWAGGER IS THE POINT

The collection’s most consistent idea was protection, expressed through volume.Monumental parkas swallowed would-be champions in racing suits, knitted long johns, and cropped turtlenecks that riffed on competition bibs. Puffers sat over oversized tailoring with the insolence of a dare: try to keep up.

Then came Dsquared2’s favorite pivot, the hard edge that turns function into attitude: padded vests, biker jackets, flared leather pants, and boots engineered like a mash-up of ringed cowboy footwear and alpine tech. Even denim was pushed into spectacle, shimmering with frosted effects and sequins, sometimes shearling-lined, like a trucker jacket that had learned how to survive a blizzard.

THE GIRLS GO CYBER; THE GLAMOUR GOES ICY

Womenswear followed the same mountain track, then accelerated into a different genre: cyberpunk sensuality. Corseted minidresses built from stacked puffer sections turned outerwear into a body strategy. Hockey-inspired cropped jackets paired with denim and piped nylon trousers, while sculptural bustiers exposed skin without abandoning the collection’s “armored” logic. High-shine latex arrived as sharp tailoring, the kind of gloss that reads futuristic even in daylight, and an off-the-shoulder nylon bomber with a furry shawl collar pushed “ice glamour” into something almost cinematic. On the feet, wedge ski boots pitched the silhouette forward: part performance gear, part provocation.

CELEBRITY CASTING, AI EMOTION, AND A NEW ACCESSORY CUE

Dsquared2 understands that a runway is also a media engine, and this season the engine had a name: Hudson Williams. His debut, framed as a crossover moment between fashion and the hockey drama, Heated Rivalry, that made him a talking point, was treated like an event within the event.

Around it, the Catens layered more signals. There was a custom soundtrack shaped with AI tools to translate the designers’ current emotional temperature, and a product story that fit this world of speed and modularity: the #D2speed hybrid eyewear developed with Carrera, featuring a magnetic system that swaps traditional temples for an elastic, goggle-style band. In other words, the accessory as a wearable switch, street to slope, and back again.

The uncomfortable question, and the one worth asking now, is what “a new era” means when fashion is doing its loudest work under pressure. Still, there was something bracing in how directly Dsquared2 embraced cold as metaphor: not just for climate, but for the times.