Milan Fashion Week: Prada’s spring/summer 2022 collection, Raf Simons and Miuccia Prada’s third together, is a ‘deconstruction of evening wear’
- The luxury brand might have had its first live runway show since the pandemic hit Italy, but it doesn’t see a ‘return to normal’
- Influencers and fashionistas crowded Fondazione Prada to see cinched dresses, punky blouses and knitwear as another show simultaneously took place in Shanghai
Prada returned to the live runway for the first time since February 2020, when the creative partnership between Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons was announced and just as Italy detected the first locally transmitted cases of the new coronavirus.
Fans thronged the pavement outside the Fondazione Prada showroom and contemporary art exhibition space to hail VIPs and influencers alike, as old fashion rituals resumed.
Inside, masked editors vetted with a health pass sat at a social distance that left plenty of room to breathe. Another show was staged simultaneously in Shanghai, with images of the darkened skyline broadcasted in the Milan showroom.
The collection, the third of the Prada-Simons era, was a deconstruction of traditional evening wear – trains, corsets and evening gowns – as a study in sensuality and in revealing the female form, the designers said in show notes.
Simons bemoaned the “irreality” of an evening gown “however beautiful”, and it is certainly the case that many gowns have spent the pandemic hanging, unheralded, in wardrobes.
“These clothes can become complicated: evening dresses, historical costume. We want to make it uncomplicated, easy, that feels modern,” Simons said.