BAD GYAL HAS A NEW BAG. UNFORTUNATELY, NOW I WANT ONE.
There was a time when a bag campaign wasn’t just a photo of a bag.
There was a woman. There was a storyline. There was probably a tiny dress. Someone looked like they hadn’t been home in two days.
You wanted the bag because you wanted whatever was happening in the picture.
Dsquared2 apparently remembers.
For its new Roxy Bag campaign, the brand tapped Bad Gyal and model Noah Brown, photographed by Hugo Comte, and dropped them somewhere between a Western fantasy and the kind of early-2000s celebrity chaos we used to study in magazines. Dean and Dan Caten even show up themselves.
It’s sexy. A little ridiculous. Very Dsquared2.
Thank God.
Because I’m becoming increasingly suspicious of fashion campaigns where everybody looks like they’re waiting for an Uber.
Give me a plot.
THE BAG HAS BELTS. OF COURSE IT DOES.
The Roxy is basically what happens when a saddle bag starts going out.
It’s long and compact, with chunky buckles and belt-like straps wrapping around the body. The Western references are obvious, but it doesn’t feel like someone wandered into a costume department and yelled “COWBOY.”
More importantly, there’s history here.
The Roxy looks back to Dsquared2’s Spring/Summer 2006 collection, right down to archival inspiration for the logo treatment.
Which makes sense, because 2006 Dsquared2 was operating in exactly the fashion universe everyone keeps trying to recreate now.
Low-rise everything. Celebrity spectacle. Clothes that knew they were hot.
Nothing was whispering.
And I’m sorry, but sometimes I miss when fashion spoke at a completely inappropriate volume.
Image: Hugo Comoto
BAD GYAL MAKES PERFECT SENSE HERE
Bad Gyal doesn’t look like someone hired to hold the product.
She looks like the bag belongs to her.
There’s a difference.
The campaign moves from dusty Western imagery into Barcelona, playing with that paparazzi-era feeling where getting out of a car somehow constituted an entire fashion editorial.
That’s also why Hugo Comte behind the camera makes sense. The images are polished, but they aren’t precious. There’s movement. There’s attitude. There’s enough going on that I actually want to look at the campaign longer than it takes me to identify what’s being sold.
This should not be revolutionary.
Yet here we are.
I THINK I MISS WHEN BAGS HAD PERSONALITIES
Maybe that’s what got me.
The Roxy doesn’t seem interested in becoming your sensible everyday bag.
She has hardware.
She has belts.
She has somewhere to be.
Even Dsquared2 describes the bag through its Wild West references, with statement buckles and saddle-inspired attitude baked into the design.
And suddenly I’m thinking about all those bags from the 2000s that were almost characters themselves.
You recognized them across the room.
Sometimes they were slightly ugly.
Sometimes that was the point.
They jingled. They hung too low. They had unnecessary buckles. They got better after somebody actually carried them for six months.
I don’t necessarily need another perfectly behaved leather rectangle.
Sometimes I want the bag equivalent of someone you probably shouldn’t date.
ANYWAY, I’VE LOOKED AT THE ROXY TOO LONG.
