The show of the Prada women's collection for the spring-summer 2021 season ended in Milan. For the first time, Belgian designer Raf Simons worked on the collection with Miuccia Prada, who officially took over as the second creative director of the Italian brand.
The news that Raf Simons has become Prada's second creative director rocked the fashion industry in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic in Milan in February. I was shocked precisely because the idea of cooperation between the Italian brand and the Belgian designer had been expressed for a long time, but it never found a real embodiment either in the transfer of control to Raf Simons or in his joint collection with Miuccia Prada.
The similarities between these designers - equally ingenious, legendary and admired by the public - are obvious: both love industrial design, respect archives, and also show attention to detail. Prada and Simons' first show, which they worked on during quarantine and put on in an empty room with yellow curtains and dim lights, reflected their "collective conscious" perfectly.
Yellow curtains are one of the few color accents in the Prada show, along with blue pointed pumps with tongue and rectangular coral leather bags. The clothes themselves are made mainly in black and white: sleeveless dresses, cocoon capes, single-breasted coats, pajama suits and anoraks in combination with fluffy pleated skirts.
Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons explored the concept of uniform, which at the same time encompasses community, the visual representation of identity, shared values and ways of thinking. Since a must-have component of a uniform is not so much simplicity as recognition, the creative co-directors have added the triangular Prada logo to almost every item in the collection.
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At the same time, one cannot say that it turned out to be inexpressive. The decorative role was played by Prada mini-bags, which turned into patch pockets on skirts and tops, and prints from Raf Simons' longtime friend Peter de Potter (he is widely known as the creator of the cover of Kanye West's album "The Life Of Pablo"). As the designers themselves explain, the artist's works are used to “interrupt and disrupt the uniform surfaces of clothing”, and also as a symbol of “the meeting of worlds and aesthetic discourses”.
It is interesting that on the day of the show, “aesthetic discourses” met not only in the collection, but also in reality. Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons held a public talk where fans from all over the world asked them questions through the Prada website. A young man from Kiev asked how long the designers wanted to work with each other ("It always seems"), and a ten-year-old girl from Pennington learned how to succeed in the fashion industry ("Learn").
However, the main question about how long the collaboration will last was asked to co-creative directors long before the first joint show. "Our contract is eternal, it has no end date," Miuccia Prada replied in a February interview with Vogue.>