Raf and Miuccia. The gift that keeps on giving. This time their gift to us comes in a rather thin package, wrapped in contrasting colours and adorned with the three dots that form the signature triangle as a bow. In an exercise in purification, cleansing our palates and eyes of the overload of information that fashion and our lives have become, the wonder duo resort to the striking effectiveness of a well-constructed garment, with its clear lines, its soothing transparencies and the ever-functional attractiveness of the basics. This season’s collection from Prada at Milan Fashion Week is built around the notion of choice, and we already know Simons and Prada can choose no wrong.
Whenever a new Prada collection is presented, the most common sentence that follows is “They did it again”, and so they did. As two deeply perceptive individuals attuned to the reality of the world, it is no surprise that Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons have decided to make their latest show an oasis where we can rest our minds. Starting from the set, where invitees were surrounded by four white walls and stood on transparent rectangular panels, one must imagine how grateful the eyes are in such a clean space as opposed to what they have to withstand every single day. The colour here came mostly from the different outfits the guests were wearing, pieces in bright colours that, next to the white of the space, replicated the contrast that was seen on the looks that walked the runway later on.
With very simple garment typologies and the appeal lying more in the textures, the layered transparencies, the geometric patterns and the popping colours rather than complex silhouettes, the intention was to return to the fundamentals, where clothes are meant to dress the body and where more possibilities and opportunities are born the more distilled the pieces are. A good white long-sleeve T-shirt can have a longer and more productive life than a deconstructed crazy jacket, for example. Here, these T-shirts are as nice as the more stand-out pieces, often outerwear and pants in colourful leather. The use of black and white next to these particular colour shades brought me back to one of my favourite Raf Simons collections, F/W 2021. Raf has a way with colour that I will never be tired of.
A womenswear look opening a menswear show, a leather jacket underneath a knitted vest, the waistband of casual trousers poking out from a pair of formal trousers — there's still this paradoxical sensibility so signature of Prada even in the most pragmatic collections. But this paradoxical nature can also prompt questions about other, somewhat confusing aspects that go beyond design choices and concern the audience these designs are being made for. “Clothes as universal articles of life, resilient, are reconsidered with new thought”, but how universal are the sizes seen on the runway? I mentioned previously how aware of society Raf and Miuccia are, but these extremely form-fitting pieces worn by extremely thin models do not send the best message, particularly within the current discourse surrounding bodies, where there seems to be a return to negative habits that were once fought against.
Everything is great: the clothes and the accessories, with the glasses and the waist bag becoming focal points of the pared-back outfits; the colour schemes are as impeccable as usual, and the concept and design are as strong as one expects from Prada. “Newness is understood as rupture, conveyed through a recalibration of perception” is another quote from the press notes. Can we recalibrate the perception not only of the garments but also of those who wear them? Can we rupture the past ideals in the wake of this much-mentioned newness?
