The gasp factor at Prada’s show tonight was the vastness of the new multipurpose performance space at the Fondazione Prada she has opened. We sat on inflatable Verner Panton stools and took it all in: the stadium seating at one end; the cavernous hall; then the fact that the floor was marked out with grids of geographical coordinates denoting the exact place in the world each one of us was occupying. “We wanted to introduce life to the Fondazione, because sometimes art is not enough,” said Prada.
Placing fashion on an equal footing with an art performance is a prerogative Miuccia Prada has always asserted. It puts people on the edge of their seats, straining to correctly perceive what this oracle of fashion will have to say about the state of the world. This time, her address seemed aimed directly to youth. There were cycling shorts and duchesse satin A-line tunics and baby doll dresses; plunging bodysuits with straps under the breasts; sheer black knee-highs implanted with Prada’s triangular logos; and iterations of her ’60s–’70s throwback print jersey ladylike coats, all of it topped off with puffy Alice bands. “I wanted to break the rules of the classic,” she said. “To discuss a wish of freedom and liberation and fantasy, and, on the other side, the extreme conservatism that is coming—the duality out there.”
It’s no secret that a new generation of consumers is rising all over the world, and there’s a battle of the brands to win their attention. Never mention the word millennial to Miuccia Prada, however—as someone did in the press melee afterward. “I don’t like it when people assemble meaning around a term like millennial,” she said. “It means somebody to sell things to. Young people are different kinds—they’re intelligent, they’re stupid, they’re cultivated, they’re not. I speak to people. What worries me,” she added, “is simplification. Because politics is run by slogans—or not even that, by a hashtag. If you take away content and simplify, at a certain point you can’t say anything.”
For sure, this was a collection which defied neat taglines. In Prada’s head there may have been a war against incipient fascism going on, but her collection still had plenty to wear, like the double-breasted jackets, the tie-dye circle skirts, and cashmere sweaters with neat white shirt collars. And you wouldn’t need to be a schoolgirl to get away with them.
