“We wanted to do something that would express youthful optimism,” Miuccia Prada said after a high-spirited and newsy Prada men’s show that displayed some of the shrunken silhouettes, spunky colors and styling that has heated Miu Miu to the boiling point.
Prada said she and Raf Simons, her co-creative director, worked in an instinctive manner this season, and “put things together in a very simplistic, very naive way.”
“Sometimes when you get older, you start to overthink a lot, and you limit yourself,” Simons mused during the backstage scrum. “How fresh the mind of youth. When you’re young, you just go — and we like that spirit.”
The designers cherrypicked items from from mom, dad, and perhaps grandmother and grandfather — much as Prada did with her blockbuster fall 2024 Miu Miu womenswear show in Paris last March — as well as memories, and fantasies, yielding a zesty wardrobe for ravers and rockers.
Guests arriving at the vast show space at Fondazione Prada encountered a little white house poking out of one wall, strobe lights and techno throb leaking out of the windows and a door left slightly ajar. When the lights went up, models spilled out and traversed a winding, sloping runway ringed partially by a rickety white fence.
The collars of their shirts jutted askew, thanks to wires sewn inside the seams, or hems were scrunched around the midriff, leaving a slice of tummy exposed.
It must have been one hell of a house party.
Terrific leather macs, utility jackets and wool sweaters all came in shrunken proportions, some outerwear bearing the abbreviated, bracelet-length sleeves that have been the oddball trend of Milan.
The sweaters were killer, mostly crewnecks or high V-necks bearing trompe-l’œil polo collars in arresting color combinations. They were stealthily branded, the Prada triangle represented as a ghostly void at the top of the spine.
Trompe-l’œil also played out in the fabrics — light cotton masquerading as wool herringbone for cool, gently flaring pants — and in the footwear, which included retro sneakers, worn brogues and tasseled loafers interpreted as slides.
A similar trick of thought yielded typical concert T-shirts that displayed paintings by Bernard Buffet in lieu of LCD Soundsystem or Enhypen.
Prada and Simons titled the collection “Closer” since the clothes often give a different perception when viewed up close.
Simons mentioned superheroes backstage, and didn’t elaborate, but the offbeat jumpsuits streaked with big colorful zippers and the mirrored, shield-like sunglasses made one think of the homegrown hero “Kick-Ass” — a tale of youthful optimism if there ever was one.