There is a small irony at the center of Dusen Dusen’s dog line. The brand runs on color, bold, clashing, geometric prints splashed across towels, tissue boxes, duvets, and yes, dog beds. And the dog who inspired all of it, designer Ellen Van Dusen’s black-and-white Boston Terrier, Snips, lives in a world that is mostly muted, because dogs are close to colorblind. Snips will never see the riot of pattern she set in motion. She started it anyway, as muse, mascot, and, most importantly, product tester.
A studio dog, in the literal sense
Van Dusen works out of Brooklyn, shuttling between a Bed-Stuy brownstone and a Clinton Hill studio and storefront, with Snips almost always along for the ride. The two are rarely apart, and that is not an accident of affection so much as a working relationship. Van Dusen got Snips more than a decade ago, back when her studio was inside her apartment and she was cooped up there for long stretches, sometimes never stepping outside on bad-weather days. A week of dog-sitting a friend’s dog convinced her how much a dog would improve her life, and Snips followed. The dog keeps her on schedule, and a mid-afternoon Snips break, she has said, almost always lifts her mood.
At the storefront, Snips is a fixture. Because the brand sells dog sweaters, customers turn up with their own dogs to try them on, which delights Van Dusen and, one suspects, Snips, who by all accounts prefers being the only dog on staff so she never has to share the spotlight. She is a confident little character: most interested in whoever is least interested in her, a champion of the slow-burn chase, and capable of holding eye contact long enough to make a stranger genuinely uncomfortable.
The dog bed that started it
The line grew out of a very ordinary frustration. After getting Snips, Van Dusen went looking for a dog bed and found everything on offer either dull or downright ugly. A dog bed, she reasoned, is basically furniture, always out, always taking up floor space, so it might as well be something you actually want to look at. So she made one. Snips became the brand’s lead wear-tester, a role she takes seriously in her own diva way: the house is full of Dusen Dusen dog beds, stacked in piles, and Snips reliably chooses the tallest stack to perch on, currently topped by the brand’s Wingdings bed.
The matching human-and-dog sweaters came from an equally simple impulse: Van Dusen wanted to dress like her dog. She describes the resulting twinning as both embarrassing and emboldening, which is about the most honest thing anyone has said about coordinating outfits with a pet.
The Harry Styles of it all
That first run of dog sweaters sold out fast, and Van Dusen is candid that she had help. On a Saturday Night Live sketch called “My Dog Is My Boyfriend,” Aidy Bryant’s dog transforms into Harry Styles, and the two appear in the same sweater, a Dusen Dusen one. She counts it among her favorite career moments, and it did for the dog line what a hundred ad campaigns could not. She has since kept the dog collection deliberately small, treating it a little like a club for people in the know rather than something to scale endlessly.
Where the prints come from
Van Dusen thinks of her patterns as a record of what catches her eye. She photographs things constantly, then combs back through the images looking for the threads connecting what she keeps noticing, and designs outward from those. Her recent reference points run from the sculptor Matthew Ronay to the modernist Sophie Taeuber-Arp, plus the complex tile work and 1960s wallpaper she keeps circling back to. It is a magpie approach, and it is why the prints feel personal rather than trend-chased.
She also happened to build a pet line right as the culture caught up to it. During the pandemic, when everyone was trying to make home more livable, and, in many cases, getting a dog, Dusen Dusen sold more dog beds than usual. People stuck inside felt closer to their animals, and wanted the shared space to look good.
An easy dog, mostly
Van Dusen is quick to say she got lucky with Snips, who does not destroy things, does not like being out in bad weather, and generally keeps a cheerful, easygoing attitude. The responsibility can still be hard, but she has a network of friends and family who are also devoted Snips fans and can step in when she is running late or out of town. Their favorite off-duty ritual is a game: Snips has an Ikea stuffed pig, roughly her own size, that Van Dusen periodically replaces as it gets destroyed, and they play a version of hide-and-seek with it. The way Snips hunts, audibly sniffing, checking inside every container, knocking pillows off the couch, is so exaggerated it reads as cartoon. On calmer days they loop the Ridgewood Reservoir, about fifteen minutes from Bed-Stuy, where the trail is quiet enough to forget you are in New York.
What’s new since this was written
Van Dusen once hinted that Snips, whom she long pegged as a city dog, was surprising her by taking happily to time upstate, and that the brand had “exciting collaborations” on the way. Those have since landed, and they have leaned hard into the pet world. In fall 2024, Dusen Dusen teamed up with Little Beast on dog onesies, parka vests, and carriers in the brand’s signature contrasting stripes. In spring 2025 it went outdoor, partnering with the furniture brand Fatboy on beanbags, a hammock, pillows, and a sofa in Dusen Dusen prints, gear as at home on a patio with a dog as anywhere. And in fall 2025 the studio collaborated with Hanna Andersson on French-terry sweats, pajamas, socks, and tees. The through-line holds: wherever the brand goes next, it is a safe bet a small, opinionated Boston Terrier will test it first.
