Fashion

Raf Simons’ Prada debut: Everything you need to know about SS/2021’s most-talked-about show

By Marc Jacobs

The day we’ve all been waiting for is finally here. From opera shawls and built-in fanny packs to Swiss-cheese cutouts and mullet bangs, this is your debrief on the Prada/Simons uniform

The news that Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons would join forces as co-creative directors of Prada was handed down to a small gathering of fashion journalists via a revelatory press conference during Milan Fashion Week in February—thus beginning the countdown to one of the fashion world’s most eagerly anticipated collection unveilings of all time, from two of its most formidable talents. I'm an inline-style link with title All parties have kept hush in the intervening months, with the details originally set out during the Milan conference providing pretty much the only reliable roadmap for what lay ahead.

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“Fashion is about reacting to reality”: Mrs Prada on technology, sustainability and inclusivity

“During the lockdown, I realised how important technology is and how it’s impactful for us and in some ways an extension of ourselves,” Prada explained during the post-show Q&A. “One thing that was very important was the relationship between the technology—the machine—and the girl.” Cue a show set that posed surveillance cameras as ‘chandeliers’. “I want to underline how important sustainability and inclusivity are […] We should, each of us, embrace it,” she stated unequivocally, with Simons concurring.

Prada spring/summer 2021. Courtesy of Prada .

The Simons-ness and the Prada-ness

“I feel very at ease in the situation,” Simons revealed today, while also later describing himself as “the outsider” who is watching and seeing the Prada brand from the inside for the first time. “This is a beginning […] That’s the beauty of it, that we don’t know where we are going,” Prada added.

A uniform needs to also express something that is more timeless for me than a season-specific fashion item. It’s a base.

Raf Simons, Prada’s co-creative director

The duo have a shared history of high-art collabs—Sterling Ruby, Peter Saville and Jeanne Detallante among them. This season, the graphic artworks emblazoned on cocooning hooded outerwear, backpacks and swishy knee-length skirts were created with the help of Belgian artist Peter De Potter, a long-term collaborator of Simons, which were, as the show notes explained “used to interrupt and disrupt the uniform surfaces of clothes.”

Looks better if its longer. Some sample text again. The duo have a shared history of high-art collabs—Sterling Ruby, Peter Saville and Jeanne Detallante among them. This season, the graphic artworks emblazoned on cocooning hooded outerwear, backpacks and swishy knee-length skirts were created with the help of Belgian artist Peter De Potter, a long-term collaborator of Simons, which were, as the show notes explained “used to interrupt and disrupt the uniform surfaces of clothes.”

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Some sample text again. Moving this up before images. The duo have a shared history of high-art collabs—Sterling Ruby, Peter Saville and Jeanne Detallante among them. This season, the graphic artworks emblazoned on cocooning hooded outerwear, backpacks and swishy knee-length skirts were created with the help of Belgian artist Peter De Potter, a long-term collaborator of Simons, which were, as the show notes explained “used to interrupt and disrupt the uniform surfaces of clothes.”

Should be longer as well. This is in the same text component. Some sample text again. The duo have a shared history of high-art collabs—Sterling Ruby, Peter Saville and Jeanne Detallante among them. This season, the graphic artworks emblazoned on cocooning hooded outerwear, backpacks and swishy knee-length skirts were created with the help of Belgian artist Peter De Potter, a long-term collaborator of Simons, which were, as the show notes explained “used to interrupt and disrupt the uniform surfaces of clothes.”

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Some sample text again. The duo have a shared history of high-art collabs—Sterling Ruby, Peter Saville and Jeanne Detallante among them. This season, the graphic artworks emblazoned on cocooning hooded outerwear, backpacks and swishy knee-length skirts were created with the help of Belgian artist Peter De Potter, a long-term collaborator of Simons, which were, as the show notes explained “used to interrupt and disrupt the uniform surfaces of clothes.

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Hello, same text again. And again. And again. The duo have a shared history of high-art collabs—Sterling Ruby, Peter Saville and Jeanne Detallante among them. This season, the graphic artworks emblazoned on cocooning hooded outerwear, backpacks and swishy knee-length skirts were created with the help of Belgian artist Peter De Potter, a long-term collaborator of Simons, which were, as the show notes explained “used to interrupt and disrupt the uniform surfaces of clothes.”