Miuccia Prada Involves Artist Sophia Al-Maria in Miu Miu Show
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
MILAN — Miuccia Prada never leaves anything to chance and for her Miu Miu spring show on Tuesday, she has once again involved an artist.
“The fashion show is another opportunity to further comment on the moment we are living, it is not a decorative necessity but more about bringing another point of view to the conversation,” the designer stressed.
More from WWD
Prada, Magnum Photos Partner for Prada Reporter, Debuting at Selfridges Corner Shop
Prada Makes Donation to Milan's Parco Nord as Part of Reforestation Pledge
Enhypen, Pia Wurtzbach, Win Metawin O. Generated the Highest Media Value During Milan Fashion Week
To be held at Auguste Perret’s Palais d’Iéna, the location will be transformed by Prada, AMO and Qatari-American artist Sophia Al-Maria into a landscape of technological ruins.
The room’s columns will be complemented by a series of 20-foot-tall metal columns, some crowned by a capital-like cluster of speakers, others holding digital screens.
Mirrors covering the windows of the Palais and the catwalk, made of the same polished metal as the columns, will amplify the colonnade.
“I met Mrs. Prada in Venice and she asked for me to be involved and I was really excited about the prospect of doing something historically related because I know this is a shared interest,” Al-Maria said.
“One of the things I am most interested in writing about history and narrative structures, is the ways we construct stories on columns, and I am also fascinated by the architecture of the space at the Palais. The set itself expands outward, it multiplies columns and the existing architectural features, so it becomes quite disorienting and less clear. Most of my work tries to complicate the stories we already think we know, historical stories and archetypes.”
Screens will display Al-Maria’s video “Gravity & Grace,” inspired by the archetype of the jester and the king. The mirrors will create a kaleidoscopic display of the videos.
Contrasting with the metal, attendees will sit on rectangular benches covered in a soft blue carpet.
Al-Maria has asked Indigenous composer and artist Divide and Dissolve to create the soundtrack, arranged by Asma Maaroof, Daniel Pineda and Joshua Fay.
A petrichor scent was developed for the show space.
The artist expressed her excitement about the film element, “taking the archetype of the jester and the king, two points of view, both locked in dance and death. It’s necessary for the king to see the truth and for the jester he needs the king to live and survive.”
Al-Maria said she chose that specific archetype because she was handed a “particular jacket” to dress actress Ayesha Hussain that reminded her of Harlequin, or a diamond pattern on a jester’s costume.
She recreated the space inside the Palais and filmed Hussain there, dancing and playing the two roles.
Al-Maria was given free rein by Prada, and she admitted it was a new “quite special and different” experience for her to work with an architect studio such as OMA as a first step, given her background in theater, films and art.
Asked about the main challenge tackling this project, she said that “the situation was one of abundance, and sometimes when everything feels possible, it’s difficult to [narrow things down]” but that she was happy with the final result.
Al-Maria has had solo exhibitions at the Tate Britain, the Whitney Museum of American Art and La Biennale di Venezia.
In March, Miu Miu linked with South Korean choreographer and performance artist Geumhyung Jeong. Miuccia Prada previously worked with artists Meriem Bennani on the Miu Miu spring 2022 show and with Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg on the fall 2022 show. For Miu Miu‘s spring 2023 show, the designer involved Chinese artist Shuang Li, who conceived a video and set installation.
Best of WWD
