It’s Prada, but not as you know it
It’s been almost two years since Raf Simons took on the co-creative directorship of Prada alongside long-time designer Miuccia Prada. Now, the Italian fashion house is championing contrast in more ways than one.
On 16th January, Prada unveiled its most recent collection Fall Winter 2022/2023 at the Fondazione Prada in Milan. The show was a melting pot of innocence and experience, both in its models and in its designs. Amongst the crowd were Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Asa Butterfield, and Damson Idris; the list goes on. However, eschewing fashion’s penchant for the new and, well, fashionable, the show was bookended with Sex and the City’s Kyle MacLachlan, 62, and Jeff Goldblum, 69 (no stranger to Prada, we’ve seen his shirts), whose swagger and pointed expression somehow boasted authority and naïveté in equal measure.
As a stranger to the catwalk, one can infer that Goldblum’s apparent authority can be attributed in part to a long and successful career of pretending, but also to a black overcoat that was both generous in its size and its mohair trims, that were not unevocative of children’s armbands in their positioning (learning to swim but make it fashion). In this instant, we see Prada and Simons respectively.
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Belgian furniture designer Raf Simons turned his structural prowess toward couture in the early 1990s after being inspired by fellow Belgian, Martin Margiela’s seminal 1989 first come, first served show that saw a derelict, graffiti-ridden Parisian venue awry with local children, who even joined the models on the catwalk.
Involved, experimental runway shows have followed Simons throughout his career from his industrial Black Palms show (FW98) at his own menswear brand Raf Simons to his debut Dior show at Paris Fashion Week (FW12), which illustrated Simons’ proclivity for contrast in full Technicolor: walls adorned with over a million flowers, some in natural pinks and yellows; some in a Microsoft blue that is certainly not typical of natural flora. More recently at Prada, FW21 Ready-to-wear show interiors saw interconnecting rooms that married gaudy faux-fur walls with monochromatic marble flooring and vice versa.
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Alongside Raf Simons, the brand since 1995, Simons has successfully helmed Jil Sander and Christian Dior. At Calvin Klein however, his total shake-up of Francisco Costa’s very traditional idea of haute couture saw models in Jaws t-shirts and the ready-to-wear collection renamed the confusing 205W39NYC, leaving Calvin Klein clientele disillusioned and in no rush whatsoever to buy the clothes. Simons’ 205W39NYC did so badly that Calvin Klein abandoned its RTW collection altogether and the designer parted ways with the brand.
Two years later, Simons is summoned to take on the co-creative directorship of Prada alongside Miuccia Prada and he is no doubt keen to show that he has learnt from his mistakes: it turns out that a bit of necessary modernisation does not mean turning the brand on its head. In his tenure so far at Prada, his career-long evolution as a designer can surely be seen, with the last two years’ collections acting as a selection of his greatest hits amongst Prada’s more timeless silhouettes.
For the FW21 collection, Simons lifted his original stocking-bootie design from his time at Dior and added various semi-geometric patterns, as well as an equally hybridised gloved long-sleeved top. Returning to Prada’s most recent collection, models (such as Brodie-Sangster) sported singular statement earrings, another of Simons’ triumphs at Dior, but this time in robot form.
These contrasting designers level each other out to create cohesive and relevant collections that move with the times. After the first lockdown and Simons’ arrival at the brand, Prada’s FW21 RTW collection brought us comfortable couture to mirror a general feeling in response to what was for many, a three-month stint in their pyjamas. Now it’s back to work, but not as we know it.
Prada said that the recent workwear collection (FW22/23) consisted of “meaningful fashion” and “clothes that make sense”. The deconstruction of the traditional boiler suit into trousers and tailored shirt are evocative of the deconstruction and hybridisation of the working week that we now recognise as the “new normal”.
Prada with Raf Simons is a brand of contrasts, but can more aptly be defined as a brand of yin-yang, of balance: when Prada provides experience, Simons tacks on some playful innocence. In this sense it is not surprising that when Prada designs a classic overcoat, Simons might want to throw some thick mohair armbands at it – and if Jeff doesn’t mind, why should we?
