Ice hockey? Ice shmockey. As Hudson Williams discovered in Milan tonight, the hottest rivalries of all play out in fashion. Zero pucks have been given in recent days as houses scrummed to secure the services of Williams and his Heated Rivalry co-star Connor Storrie in (or alongside) their menswear shows. Tonight Dsquared2 recorded the first win of this season’s fiercest contest when Williams made his first ever walk on their (fake) snow fringed runway.
Backstage, Vogue took a brief time out with Williams as he was being fitted into his hybrid ski-cowboy-boots preshow. Was he ready to play? “It’s nerve wracking,” he admitted: “I feel very out of my element. This doesn’t feel like acting. So I’m just going to try my best to walk and serve as well as all these other people doing it. But I’m sure I’ll look a little like a chicken out there—like Bambi.”
Close by designer Dan Caten was masterminding the backstage’s final touches while his brother Dean, out of the game following a snowboard injury, watched on from the sidelines. How did Dan feel about pulling off the casting coup of the season by opening the show with one of America’s hottest new sweethearts? “He’s Canadian. He’s Canada’s sweetheart!,” Williams’s fellow Vancouverite rightly corrected us, before amicably declining to impose tariffs. “It’s exciting! And I think and hope Hudson is excited too.
And how would he describe the look the Catens selected for Williams’s show opening? “So okay: we’re doing these cropped ski pants, tied and sexy—a ’70s kind of ski thing. And we did this boot that juxtaposes these hard leather square toed boots with ski boot uppers. He’s got this cross between an athletic track suit top with a kind of jean jacket stacked on top of it: a hybrid sports thing. It’s really cute. And he’s wearing one of those little numbers that Olympic competitors wear, but it’s a bedazzled number.”
“I love my look,” said Williams. “I’m really comfortable and confident in it, and it makes me feel like I can put a little more oomph in my walk.”
Oomph was what Williams duly delivered once it was time for tonight’s runway face-off to commence. Despite those advanced boots, he delivered a flawless approach down a challenging opening staircase obstacle. Even on a straightforward back-and-forth course such as tonight’s, leading the walk can be challenging for even veteran players. For a rookie, Williams came through admirably, running the gauntlet of a fearsome, content-hungry audience. For his finale return, he served a more advanced, confidence-charged dose of swagger before Dean and Dan closed the runway atop the bare shoulders of a pair of ripped athletes (a strictly medical intervention to allow Dean to take his bow).