At the risk of stating the obvious, Miuccia Prada declared backstage after her spring Miu Miu show that “the world is becoming very irrational.” Without getting specific, she acknowledged that such a statement is more complicated than anything that can be expressed on a runway. But she still sideswiped at frustration with a great collection about underground culture, protest and escape. “We all want to go beyond what’s happening,” said Prada.
If a collection can’t be an agent of change socio-politically — which, let’s face it, is rarely the place of luxury goods — it can be a portal to fashion fantasia. The lineup was stocked with dream pieces, splurges of the head-in-the-clouds variety, and of the pragmatic chic sense.
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Working from the house-specific taste for retro, spanning roughly the Fifties to the Seventies, Prada built lean, polished silhouettes out of discordant pieces. The looks gave the impression of good girls/ladies in headbands and neat, tailored jackets over straight, secretary skirts, but Prada sent them appealingly off course via erratic colors, patterns and delicate perversions. A short, boxy red leather jacket had diamond patterns down the front that clashed with a turquoise skirt with a raccoon fur tail trailing off. Sheer pretty-baby nightgowns looked deliberately naïve and cheap (though they most certainly won’t be) layered with primly buttoned-up shirts, skirts and a range of refined leather coats.
The season’s fetish items powered up each look, particularly in the accessories: fabulous fur stoles with tails as well as shoes that veered between colorful, sparkly platform drag-queen dream boots, and bondage ballet flats bound with a bevy of straps. Contrasts were everywhere, yet for a show about irrationality, the clothes made perfect sense, especially within the Pradasphere.