The six ingredients of a perfect Prada show- and how Miuccia nailed every one for spring/summer 2019
The laws of the cosmos insist that every Prada show must contain unsettling elements. An expectation that each season Miuccia Prada will somehow unseat a collective set of beliefs – about what is and isn’t beautiful, what is chic, what is kitsch - and that she will lay a new direction that will eventually become mainstream, has become as much a part of the experience of watching her show as the crush to get in. Exhausting for her. Impossible to maintain.
Inevitably there have been some seasons of creative water treading, coupled with financial challenges – too many stores, not enough digital savvy. However the feeling that Prada is returning to form after a few seasons of treading water seems to be gaining momentum. With Gucci temporarily off the Milan agenda, Milan needs its remaining big names to excel and on the way out of last night’s blockbuster, the groundswell gathered force: Miuccia’s back on form.
But did the evidence stack up? How did Prada adhere to its own rules?
1. There must be some weird in every show
Scuba-inspired sandal bootees in bubblegum pink or purple should give the Vibram people a run for their money if Prada ever puts them into production. If nothing else, they’ll look great in every fashion shoot next season.
2. The show itself must not be an easy ride
What is the value of a brand if it makes it too easy to get into its seasonal set pieces? The scene outside the Prada Fondazione wasn’t the scrum of the previous season, but it was still hot, sticky and a rite of passage. The vast space inside (also hot) where the show took place is an imposing concrete universe, windowless, with soaring ceilings: an inward looking world unto itself where what matters is how each act of Prada relates to the other. The audience was seated on individual squishy plastic cubes – not on message as far as the planet is concerned – but a statement about human containment and isolation perhaps. And if not that, then good for the pelvic floor.
3. The music should challenge
It did.
4. At least one pariah of modern tastes must be brought in from the cold
Remember the puffy satin hairband that the Duchess of Cambridge wore to the christening of her youngest child, Louis? Miuccia has borrowed it, minted in every colour from Middleton white to sophisticated chartreuse and for evening, dusted it with crystals. Sloane-issimo.
5. There must be nods to Prada’s own significant archives
No one can make a satin Jackie Kennedy dress or skirt look modern and sleek like Miuccia Prada does – perhaps because satin is a close, if luxurious corollary of that native Prada fabric, nylon. Spring/summer '19 Prada took both materials and sliced and diced them into a myriad citrus-sy shades and simple, a-line shapes that will be endlessly copied next season.
6. There must be ample substance that we will really want to wear
This collection positively pullalated with the kind of arresting instant classics beloved of Prada fans: boxy back coats with gilt buttons and contrasting trims and high necked tunic blouses had an irresistible grown-up appeal. Sheer voile dresses, worn over nothing but men’s underwear were styled with that push-me—pull-me ugliness Prada loves, but the dresses themselves, like so much here, were hugely desirable and, layered over a slip, will even look demure. Prada at its best.
