Always get the minor sweats about writing about a Prada show. I mean, how can my words sufficiently convey Mama Miuccia’s vision? So let’s start with: it was a really very good show. Which I know – stating the bleeding obvious. It goes without saying. So can I instead start this by simply stating, and before I ruin myself with the specifics, that this is clothing that I really want to wear? Loads of it. Obsessed with the cut of those short shorts, worn with pulled up calf-length socks (a look I’ve been thinking about for a while, here presented perfectly), the tech-y joggers with buckles on the ankles, the boiler suits (!). Even the tailoring was tempting, lean and with go-faster stripes up the inner thigh – and I haven’t worn a suit since I was “straight” and took girl to prom (har har). That said, with Miuccia you always have to dig a little deeper (i.e. vaguely quote the press release in the hope you get it) – and this was, apparently, about stories. Exchanging stories.
The set was like a Lichtenstein comic book – and that’s where Miuccia started – graphic novels, picture stories, referencing these simple blocks on a page that in their simplicity still present something highly evocative. And there was something simple about the clothing itself, something cut-out, cartoony – the colours, that traffic light red, the bold prints, or the way that this schoolboy-ish silhouette ran throughout – namely: high-waisted, tucked in and open at the neckline. And maybe it’s just hot, and maybe we’re pervs, but are we wrong in saying there’s something sexy about it? The way the leg was so exposed, those pulled up socks with smart-ish shoes, the way the belts wrapped double, almost kinkily, around the waist. And is a boiler suit not quite sexy too, in that way it reveals the body? With the video game soundtrack, it all felt like Mrs Prada was turning it up. Picturing her speeding forth, Tron-like, into the future. Isn’t that a nice thought?
Photographs by Jason Lloyd-Evans
