The Prada show has just ended, and smiles are stamped on everyone’s faces. The beauty that Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons have unveiled for the upcoming Spring/Summer is of a disarming materiality. All the codes of a unique and well-defined fashion paraded today on a runway gleaming in glossy orange. The play of light and shadow created by the timid late September sun within the space is in perfect harmony with everything being presented. A warm and welcoming atmosphere, just like summer itself. That touch of industrial chic which we all now instantly associate with Prada once again captured our souls. The beauty of a fashion so simple yet so studied, so direct yet so complex. A fashion that speaks of fashion itself, that renews, that rethinks. And each time, it becomes more beautiful than before. The effortless mastery with which the two co-creative directors narrate their collections is irreverent, unique, meticulous, and wise. Everything that is Prada speaks of fashion, of history and research, of character and dialogue, of beauty.
The défilé opens with two looks inspired by workwear: belted jumpsuits in shades of blue and light blue, the common thread running from the latest men’s collection into the proposals for the women’s wardrobe. The sensuality of the Prada woman is always sober and delicate, found in lace details and sheer fabrics worn in contrast, layered across entire looks. The play of materials and layers is masterfully conceived for a feminine and modern woman—lines blend, fabrics move, and colors dictate contrasts. Lengths and volumes shift throughout the show: maxi lengths turn into minis, then stretch back down to the knee, while the shapes of dresses and skirts become true structures, garments built on a rooted history. Shirt necklines worn open are dramatically deep, revealing bras underneath. Leather jackets are reduced in silhouette, collars round and widen, sliding off the shoulders. The sartorial world returns in the panels combined within skirts: lace, satin, and fabrics that seem to be held together only by a thin black ribbon fluttering to the rhythm of each step. Accessories are remarkable: crystals move between earrings and chokers, evening gloves are colorful and eccentric, and bags appear both present and absent—nylon clutches gripped in the hand, while the iconic leather pieces dangle from their handles—alongside new micro-heels destined to become everyone’s obsession. Colors too are the result of decades of research, the fruit of work carried out year after year, season after season. Vivid shades of green and brown, red and orange, violet and pink come alive in a way that is both harmonious and eccentric.
“Inevitably, when we create we think about the world around us. The future is unknown. This collection is about reacting to the uncertain—clothes that can shift, change, adapt. The combination of different elements, this idea of composition, carries with it the possibility of choice and therefore the freedom, authority, and autonomy of action of the woman who wears them. It is a fashion inherently connected to the world, with meaning and usefulness. How to face the world, and how to survive.”
Memory becomes the tool to bring the modern to life—the ability to adapt to something that is constantly evolving, and the will to hold on to it all. The ease with which visionary yet utterly coherent ideas are narrated is unique. The dialogue flowing through every look in the collection mirrors the creative exchange that Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons must constantly share. And how wonderful it would be to listen to the way this all comes to life, season after season. This time it felt perhaps even more magical, in such an unstable and complex moment for fashion, where once again the narrative emerges victorious: the story of a strong, precise character, of a concrete and material fashion made of real gestures, of fabrics, colors, and craftsmanship—elements sincerely present and never accidental. The reaction to something unknown and uncertain is the assurance of a fashion made of clothes, transforming into a tool to live and survive, to know and recognize, to honor the past and look ahead. Today, fashion is even more intrinsically connected to the world, to the meaning and usefulness of what happens around us. Fashion is a response of resilience, a response to the everyday. A lesson from two of the most brilliant creative minds of all time, Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons.
“We started from a sense of freedom—of expressing this though clothes. The freedom to combine different elements, to compose, but also a physical liberation, moving away from the idea of fashion as a sculptural imposition on a woman’s body. We have moved to the opposite: to physical emancipation accompanied by freedom as a state of mind.”
