perturbedwonderful was the hashtag for the Girl, Interrupted video update that introduced the Dsquared² show today. It was a more savory variant on the institutionalized existence than the similarly themed men s show in January because it offered Dean and Dan Caten an opportunity to indulge their love of the endlessly entertaining netherworld of drag. "Tonight I gave the greatest performance of my life," Shirley Bassey wailed at ten o clock on a Milanese Monday morning. Right there was the very essence of extravagant female camp, in the spirit of the mid-sixties finest slice of lunatic glamour, Valley of the Dolls.

That was definitely the period in which the story had lodged itself. The lavishly trad couture reference of a feathered cape in emerald green duchesse satin over an Empire lined navy column was every La Scala opening rolled into one outfit. But our heroine was in a psych ward, living out a psychotic fantasy, and she paraded her operatic finery while nurses monitored her every move, each of them dressed in abbreviated white leather looks that evoked Courrèges.

If the scenario wasn t as engaging as some of the Catens past theatrical masterstrokes, it did provide a showcase for their skill as merchants of fabulous fashion pastiche. This was a show that ran in reverse, beginning with gussied-up eveningwear and ending with lingerie. In between, there was a reasonable spectrum of options, from a winning color-blocked shift striped with mink, to a camel cape, to a lacquered green-python miniskirt suit. The over-the-top accessories included extravagant restraints like bejeweled arm braces and collars. Nothing there to disappoint Dean and Dan s following.

But it was actually the complex and witty aural collage of crazy ladies on the soundtrack that left at least some audience members wondering if sonic wizardry isn t the Catens true calling in life.