Until Prada‘s show yesterday, I feel like I’ve been in a coma this fashion month (maybe for a few very rare exceptions). Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons proved they are in their top game with the spring-summer 2024 collection, an offering charged with so much feeling, meaning and intelligence. As Miuccia said, it’s an ode to “culture about clothing“. Perhaps something that’s on verge of extinction in times of clothes made for Instagram and TikTok. This was also a very earnest line-up focused on clothes. “I got tired talking about ideas – let’s talk about clothes.” Aren’t all runway shows about clothes? Well, yes, but as Raf Simons went on to explain, “craft isn’t something that gets talked about a lot at Prada, at least not as much as at other houses. We wanted to show what we could do.” It wasn’t a matter of how many hours it took to embroider this and how many petites mains were involved in making that. “That’s irrelevant,” he said with a wave of his hand. “The figuring out if it can be done” was the part that got him and Prada going. Two techniques, in particular, got special mention from Simons. The first was the printed fringe they used on floral shirts that gave the individual blooms a shifting depth. And the second was the long skeins of metal fringe used for skirts “built like jewelry.” They’re conversation starters, for sure. But that’s just the beginning of this delightful menu.

Like the gritty men’s spring show, the foundation here was a tailored silhouette: broad-shoulder shacket (with the cuffs of a shirt and the lapels of a jacket) tucked into the belted waistband of high-rise shorts or front-pleat, tapering-to-the-ankle pants. Some of these odd suits were swathed in sheer printed scarves that the show notes described as “fragments of dresses.” Their ethereality provided a link to the collection’s other key shape, sleeveless shifts with 1960s-via-the-’90s lines made from organza and gazar of such gossamer fineness they seemed to float down the runway. A couple of other things that got people talking: the already-worn-in barn jackets (why not wear one over a Jazz Age flapper dress?) and the hand-carved mythological-man clasps adorning evening bags that reproduced a shape first designed in 1913 by Prada’s grandfather, who traveled the world picking up unique baubles like those carvings. These bags are heirlooms in the making.

This collection was charged with one more, extremely crucial factor. Fabio Zambernardi, the design director of Prada and Miu Miu and Miuccia’s closest collaborator who resigned this year after three decades at the company, joined the designers for a bow, doffing his cap, embracing them both, and inspiring a standing ovation in the process. Two questions emerge: how will Prada (and Miu Miu) look without Fabio’s input? And where is he headed next?

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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