Can Miuccia Prada convince you to wear neon again?
On the outskirts of Milan, Prada’s Fondazione complex has slowly been growing. Their vast exhibition space and specifically the cafe, Bar Luce, have become pilgrimage sites for tourists, who come partly just to Instagram the pastel interiors designed by filmmaker Wes Anderson. At thursday night’s Prada AW18 catwalk show, held on the fourth floor of the not-quite-finished tower addition to the complex, Anderson sat front row with long time collaborators Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman, excited whispers running through the crowd as they took their seats.
Outside the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, Miuccia Prada left some none too subtle hints as to what the collection would hold. Huge neon doodles- here a bunch of bananas, there a monkey swinging from a rooftop, to the right, a stegosaurus - punctuated the sky line, drawing on arcade games for their retro graphics.
When Miuccia Prada showed her menswear collection in January, it championed black nylon: a fabric synonymous with 1990s Prada, whether you owned the backpack or not. And it was a taste of things to come. A long padded coat, shorter jacket with matching skirt, and bandeau evening dress were the first looks to appear - all in black nylon. Tufts of fluorescent mesh sprouted from underneath hems or were tied in large, stiff bows at the back of the neck.
Next came florals, but not as you know them - they were blurred, almost pulsing, like a magic-eye book. More neutrals - camel, grey, even classic Prince of Wales checks - were introduced, layered over neon dresses, skirts and even shoes - but strip away the neons, and these were beautiful, wearable pieces: checked coats, camel tailoring. That layered styling continued, with boxy jackets worn over even boxier knits, always clashing - Fair Isle against neon tweeds against blurred fluoro prints against pailette sequins - and all topped with neon security passes. Bucket hats and matching nylon parkas nodded to rave culture.
‘Prada’ was stamped across bags in a font that nodded to 1980s sci-fi film posters for ‘Tron’ and ‘Back to the Future’. And certainly there was an element of revisiting the past here - Prada’s style signatures are too many to count, and plenty were referenced here. Fashion runs to a cycle of reusing and reinterpreting, and in Miuccia’s hands, that’s no bad thing.
