Milan Fashion Week: ‘We need to work’ – amid Italy’s coronavirus outbreak, Raf Simons and Prada announce collaboration

Feb 24 , 2020

Designers Miuccia Prada (left) and Raf Simons attend the Prada Resort 2019 fashion show in New York in May 2018. The duo said they would collaborate on Prada collections from spring/summer 2021. Photo: Getty Images / AFP

Belgian creative Raf Simons will join Prada as co-creative director and will work with Miuccia Prada on the brand’s spring/summer 2021 collections. The news came as Italy cut short the Venice Carnival due to the growing coronavirus emergency

Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons – two of the fashion world’s biggest creative names – will collaborate on Prada collections from spring/summer 2021 indefinitely, the designers said on Sunday on the sidelines of Milan Fashion Week.

Prada, who has been the creative force behind one of luxury’s most successful brands for 30 years, said the new partnership didn’t signal an eventual succession.

Italian designer Miuccia Prada presents her women’s 2019 spring-summer collection at Milan Fashion Week in September 2018. Photo: AP

“Don’t make me older than I am,” the 70-year-old designer quipped.

Simons, 52, is considered one of the fashion world’s biggest talents, whose future has been the subject of intense speculation since he left Calvin Klein in 2018. He was previously creative director of Jil Sander and Dior, and also has his eponymous label, which he said would continue.

Belgian designer Raf Simons acknowledges applause after presenting Christian Dior’s spring-summer 2016 ready-to-wear collection, at Paris Fashion Week in October 2015. Photo: AP

Their first collaboration will appear on the September runway for spring/summer 2021.

“The contract in theory is forever,” Prada said.

“Maybe this is the first time in fashion history that two expert designers who had their own successes in this sector will work together,” said Patrizio Bertelli, co-CEO of the Prada Group with his wife, Miuccia Prada.