This fashion week in Milan was shaken by the much-anticipated Prada fashion show, which marks the third collaboration between Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons.
Elegance was the order of the day for Prada’s 2021-2022 fall-winter women’s fashion show, which was broadcast virtually. One year after the first case of Covid-19 was detected in Italy, the fashion world is slowly recovering, on a note of optimism, after having completely rethought the way it works. At a press conference, Prada said: “Optimism is on the rise“.
This third collaboration between Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons is accompanied by a round-table discussion on a screen to analyze the main lines of the collection. For the occasion, the creative duo welcomed designer Marc Jacobs, musician Richie Hawtin (who created the soundtrack for the show), architect Rem Koolhaas, director Lee Daniels and actress and model Hunter Schafer.
“It’s all the more difficult because you have to present something that makes sense as a body of work, not just as a piece of clothing that you watch pass by“, said Miuccia Prada at the panel discussion.
Using the same atmosphere and setting as the men’s fashion show last January, Miuccia Prada, and Raf Simons worked together to reinvent fashion in a post-Covid world. By trying to imagine what fashion would look like afterward and adapting current textiles to the future needs of the industry, the designer duo concocted a most memorable fall-winter 2021-2022 collection.
“Transmutation is the word we always come back to, in the sense of something that gradually transforms, changes, and rises“, Raf Simons said of the collection.
Without distinguishing between masculine and feminine, the collection presented at the Prada fashion show wants to be in the era of time, but at the same time, it wants to look further and anticipate the mutations that the industry could experience once the global pandemic is definitively behind us. Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons combine practicality with glamour, as illustrated by the long glove which, with a small pocket, transforms into a wallet.
Another element omnipresent in the collection is the faux fur. Whether on long coats, or covering a bag, faux fur made a big comeback at the Prada fashion show. With its textural effects, faux fur was perfectly in line with the play of volumes that the duo enjoyed.
The sequin was also at the rendezvous on the runway, bringing the glitter back into fashion, after having left it in the closet for a year. “Clothes are explored from length to width, what was only ornamentation becomes a function, what was only pragmatism becomes a decorative element. Established codes are shaken up. The obvious is rethought, so evening dresses become utilitarian combinations, and structured coats take on bright colors or are dressed in sequins“, explains the designers.
With this fashion show, the designer duo brings together concepts as opposed to day and night in a paradoxical in-between. By mixing the beautiful with the useful, by privileging bright colors and voluminous structures, and by removing all gender distinctions, the fall-winter 2021-2022 collection signed Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons works like an oxymoron, where opposites attract each other to the point of forgetting the differences. Together, they are redefining Prada, but they are also rethinking the entire fashion industry to fit the next world.
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Featured photo : © Prada
