Romance With The Past. Prada AW24

February 22, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

Prada o’clock is Milan Fashion Week’s prime-time. And with a collection like today’s outing, Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons once again confirm that their dialogue is the ultimate creative powerhouse. The autumn-winter 2024 collection, presented on a glass runway elevated above terrarium of moss and streams, is an exploration of notions of beauty, of a contemporary world formed by memories. Romance with the past is a recurring theme in Miuccia’s work, and it seems that Raf is feeling more and more comfortable with playing around with the old-fashioned feminine decorum: prim cardigans, lace, bows. But in case of Prada, the old always feel new, revelatory and simply unexpected. Dresses were covered in layers of ribbons, but don’t you dare calling it “coquette“. These women, a bit bourgeoisie, a bit activists, in their knee-length boots and biker caps, aren’t here to lounge. The suiting and outerwear looked “normal” in the front, but in fact was absolutely revealing in the back. Prada and Simons really indulged themselves in the richness of textures and layers: we have feathers, crushed velvet, butter-smooth leathers, technical cotton, fur trims. Speaking of leather, these cropped perfectos – styled with apron-like skirts – felt so good. If “sexy” wasn’t really addressed so far in the creative duo’s work, then this collection delivers many levels and ideas of sexuality, from something kinky, even perverse, to classic Old Hollywood allure (think housecoats with sharp waists and the cold-shoulder moment of the finale dress kept in the most hypnotic shade of Victorian purple). A total YES.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Men’s – Synthetic Environments. Prada AW24

January 15, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

“In this moment you can’t avoid talking about subjects that are relevant. For instance, nature.” As Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons jointly explained, the thinking behind their Prada autumn-winter 2024 menswear collection was intimately entangled with the notion of our natural environment – how we are insulated from it, and how to go back to it. Simons addeded: “Most people’s screensavers are nature but then at the end we sit in this very synthetic human made environment.” A menacing tension felt palpable once the models, dressed as corporate commuters, walked on the raised glass floor with a stream running through a meadow beneath. The patches of highland greens contrasted with the synthetic green of the wool caps worn on the runway. The collection itself consisted of ultimate classics of menswear, as Simons listed for “the businessman, the working man, the thinking man.” Most wore ties. The Prada twist was touches that subverted these safe spaces of identity, enticing the wearer to surround himself with nature. Narrow-fit raincoats, tweed chore jackets, three-button gray topcoats, and gold buttoned naval outerwear all offered a route outdoors. This was a Prada outing that offered safeness and quintessence, clothes-wise.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Traces of Living. Miu Miu SS24

October 6, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

Miu Miu is the Sofia Coppola of fashion. With this brand, Miuccia Prada tells stories of girls (on the verge of womanhood) trying to navigate the fascinating, particular world we live in. The spring-summer 2024 collection, which is the cherry on top of this never-ending fashion month, explores a rationale of beauty today, beauty, that echoes the complexity of our era. Miuccia has a solution: instead of rigid paradigms, there is a radical expansion, a rich plurality. Not beauty, but beauties, an embracing of unique characters, the joy of life. With that in mind, the designer re-established the Miu Miu silhouette that’s seen recent collections fly off the shelves: skimpy hemlines expressed in knickers (worn as daywear), shorts and tiny tennis skirts paired with oversized blazers, bombers and coats. Triangular tops styled with low-slung tailored trousers continued the 2000s vibe beloved by a new generation of shoppers.

The collection was underpinned by a decidedly preppy mood that riffed on an American idea of ease: crested jackets over polo shirts over shirts worn with Bermuda shorts. There’s that intriguing “realness” about the recent Miu Miu collections. This time, Prada imbued her garments and accessories with what she called “traces of living”: marks on leathers and suedes, and fabrics that faded as if they’d been washed too many times. She called the pre-worn sensibility an expression of “existing love” demonstrated by the repeated use of clothes. A similar sensibility was reflected in the “real” styling (done wih Lotta Volkova’s assistance) of the slightly dishevelled layering of dresses, jumpsuits, cardigans and T-shirts, which evolved the barely-got-out-bed look that characterised last season’s collection. As a brilliant nod to real life, the toes of flip-flop-wearing models were adorned wore neon-coloured plasters. That sense of realness was also embrace by a diverse cast. Singer Troye Sivan flew the flag for the Miu Miu boy, while the artist Petra Collins and the photographer Eddy Aldridge wore “misfit” eveningwear. The Sofia Coppola reference perfectly materialized in the appearance of Cailee Spaeny, the actress who stars as Priscilla Presley in the latest work of the director.

Collages by Edward Kanarecki.
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Culture About Clothing. Prada SS24

September 22, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

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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Men’s – Skimpy, Gritty, Modern Sensuality. Prada SS24

June 18, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

(To experience the full version of this collage, check out my Instagram!)

It’s Prada day, meaning: a polarizing collection that makes everything else happening in Milan feel blunt and plain. Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons presented a menswear collection that can’t be easily classified in a couple of words. It’s utilitarian, but super-sensual, gritty, but somehow also polished, oversized, but skimpy too. You kind of want to hate it at first, but then… you get it. The third look – a fringed print white shirt and black schoolboy short – had just passed by on the industrial meshed steel runway. Suddenly, irregular lines of slime started oozing from the ceiling, falling on either side of the models. It settled into a pale green puddle as it slowly drained away. In its free fall sticky state, the gunky stuff that waterfalled down looked like something left by the alien in Alien, or a snail, or humans… after having a good time. “Now, in this time, we have to inject fantasy again, ideas,” Mrs. Prada afterwards. Together she and Raf Simons dressed their spring 2024 men in outfits that echoed the relationship between that rigid runway mesh and the glinting plasma that spurted from and through it. The starting point was a tailored silhouette featuring broad shoulders bolstered by (removable) pads, a cinched waist, with elongated jacket skirts and sleeves. Below were high waisted bottom halves that (when not hemmed as shorts mid thigh), ballooned around the groin from the naval thanks to generous side pleats before tapering down to the ankle.

Simons said that this silhouette was meant to echo the heroically enhancing tailoring paradigm of the 1940s. It was Prada-fied through a process of reduction and enlightenment: archaic heavy wools were upgraded with ultralight modern equivalents, and instead of the heavy architecture of tailored construction, those jackets were as unconfining as the lightest poplin shirt. “When we think about the body we also think about the idea of the inside and the outside, about the way a body is not still. Very often in the sartorial, it ends up being a very architectural construction and the body is partly restricted,” concluded Simons. Through and from this heavy-looking but ultra-light starting point, other elements began to push, ooze, or burst to the surface. There were those floral shirts, whose fringing and sleeves took them one evolutionary Prada step beyond its signature Hawaiian shirts. There were traditional shirts that had been subject to a freakish growth spurt, transformed into full length coats. There was a section of constriction free denim jeans topped by functionally expansive multi pocket work gilets and then fine-gauge knit shirting in navy, through which luxuriant furry tufts appeared to be sprouting. Being Prada, this menswear collection was designed to stimulate the cerebrum as much as any other body part. But it was also consistent with the recently-repressed animal urge also unleashed at DSquared2 this menswear season. Masculine sexuality, of whatever flavor and inclination, is coursing through the runways of Milan once more.