Miuccia Prada sends an apocalyptic message- with a side of Disney and dance-worthy heels
Miuccia Prada’s soundtrack told you most of what you need to know about her #currentmood. When is the trillsome Some Day My Prince Will Come from Disney’s Snow White, not ironic these days? That 1930s ideal of femininity, condensed into a coloratura soprano, floated tremulously across the black space of the Fondazione Prada, bumping up against a thrash rock version of My Favourite Things. Never have raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens sounded so ominous. Oh the fun.
And then there was the Fondazione space itself, imposing whatever you do to it and darn right creepy when you line the whole thing, including the benches, with spiky charcoal coloured foam. Merely sitting down would either be an act of subtle self-laceration or like a soft-play massage. In the event it was neither, but rather numbing.
Maybe that’s reflection of how used we’ve become to the unsettling. But the music still managed to disturb. It was sinister. It was loud. It was nerve janglingly impossible to ignore.
But then it’s what’s going on in the world outside. Miuccia Prada has been warning of the potential dangers of artificial intelligence, omni-surveillance and how we’re all sleepwalking into a technological nightmare for a while. Who was that prince the song refers to? Big Brother? A useful idiot plucked from the crowds making inexplicable decisions? A politician who might actually save us - in Britain, the US, Italy, France - from the messes we’re in? And will we have the sense to appreciate them if they do actually turn up, or will we swipe right?
Miuccia’s army of models, when they weren’t adorned with giant roses - single blooms or a spray of that were printed onto pristine white coats or wide prom skirts - looked braced for trouble. Combat touches where everywhere: stormtrooper boots with aggressively thick soles, top handled, multi pocketed bags in waterproof nylon, military style coats, jackets, slim knee length skirts and capes, in steel coloured wools or khaki silks and nylons.
As a salve to better times, this impressively trim tailoring - a reminder of what Prada can do - was as shapely and chic as anything Miuccia has ever produced. This being Miuccia, it was partnered with gauzy lace pencil skirts or trimmed with silk rose buds which provided pin-pricks of yellow or pink in the black void.
And then there were the shoes our protagonist turned to when she wasn’t stomping in her lace-ups. For like the late war reporter Marie Colvin, who never went into action without putting on her La Perla underwear underneath her flak jacket, this dystopian Pradanista needs her moment of glamour. Cue the sparkliest, dance-worthy high heels, although even they couldn’t lift Miuccia’s apocalyptic message. Maybe the prince is simply a foot fetishist.
