It is the first week of school and Ryerson has already set up a great Q&A for us: Dean and Dan of DSquared2! This was moderated by Jeannie Becker from Fashion Television and Robert Ott who is the Chair of School of Fashion here at Ryerson University. The event took place at the AMC theater Friday morning and was exclusive to the fashion school and only to the students who answered the skill testing question correctly: where were Dean and Dan born? Canada… duh!

Dean and Dan are from Willowdale Ontario [a neighbourhood in Toronto] and used Toronto as their place to start a fashion business. When they started out they said they didn’t feel like it was a real job because it was too fun. Their father didn’t think it was a great idea and he didn’t support their decisions. But they still went to Parsons in NYC for a summer program to get a taste of how the fashion world works, it was like a test for them to see how much they wanted to pursue this career.

Not long after D&D headed to Milan and that’s when they were noticed. They say that “fashion grows inside of you and believing in yourself, your brand and ideas will make other people believe in you too.”

Dean and Dan are identical twins so they are completely connected with one another. This works to their advantage in many ways. By always being together it’s a non-stop process of design. Fashion is about taking risks but not the kind of risks where you aren’t sure about yourself, designs or brand. “You never really know until you try, there is nothing to lose – if you fail at something you can always go back to where you were and no one can take that away from you“. As an example D&D showed their 35 piece collection in Milan and the showroom backed out on them because the showroom didn’t believe in their collection. So what did they do? The packed up a truck with their garments, drove to Paris and sold them out of a booth and made a pretty penny.

Today they sell their merchandise internationally. They have also designed 150 pieces for Madonna’s Drowned World Tour and music videos. Other celebs include Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and the well known Rihanna runway show in 2007. Dean and Dan have also worked for companies such as Gianni Versace, Diesel and Ports International.

Dean and Dan left us with a beautiful autographed photo (above) and a simple but positive little quote: “Aim for the stars and if you fall you can land on the clouds.”