UC G TIN R T S N O C E D

PRADA

DRESSING UP AS AN ART FORM? MIUCCIA PRADA IS THE MASTER. YOU MAY NOT ALWAYS UNDERSTAND IT, BUT IT CERTAINLY MAKES YOU FEEL SOMETHING. AND JUST LIKE ART, IT HAS THE CAPACITY TO CHANGE THINGS.

S/S16 IS NO EXCEPTION. I t’s rare to read anything about Prada these days without it being directly followed by a reference to the slump in the Chinese market and the difficulties that’s created for the brand. No one is pretending that it’s not a tricky time for luxury, although one can only imagine that Miuccia Prada – feminist, thinker, philosopher that she is – rises above it somewhat.

That’s not to say there weren’t many parts of this largely subversive collection that weren’t commercially viable when broken down. A striped pencil skirt here, a boxy car coat there – S/S16 may well have been peppered with avant-gardeisms (netting neck-veil, anyone?), but much of it was actually far more wearable than the eclectic styling might have led us to believe.

Sure, there was the brilliantly irrational colour palette, the inexplicable robot lips and the jackets dripping in oversize paillettes, but therein lies the art of Being Prada; there’s magic in Miuccia’s madness, and it’s kept us enthralled for nearly 40 years. A little thing like the economy isn’t going to hold her down.

On that topic, restrictions aren’t really part of her rhetoric. The ‘seasonullity’ of championing tweed in summer. The hyper-embellished, art school eccentricity. The turbo-layering, the contrariness and the stark contrast to literally everybody else out there. There’s integrity in that; to dance to the beat of your own drum when everyone else is plotting Insta-takeovers with the help of their renta It-squad. Prada’s agenda is far more cerebral; the belief that fashion is art, and all good art makes you think.