Fashion

Raf Simons’ Prada debut

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

bild 1.

bild. 2.

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.
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.

Advertisement

“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.

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