The filtration process continues at Prada. The show opened – once again by Julia Nobis – in a second skin, stripped from all indigo denim jacket and pants ensemble worn under a black suit jacket and with what we deem the coolest shoes coming out of the Prada house in years. Single, double or triple buckled with overly long velcro latches in shiny leather with a rectangular toe box – on the way out of the Fondazione post-show, most guests were fiending over those shoes already. But now to the clothes: The collection felt extremely stripped, concentrating on the bare minimum like that one look resembling a Canadian tux but made from a white transparent fabric that would bare it all if it weren’t for the doubled fabric layer in the crotch area. That’s the sort of intellectually innocent sexy to be expected from Prada, but which was lacking a bit in past men’s seasons.

Denim seemed to be the focal point in this collection anyway as so many garments nearly yearned to be cut from the Indigo cloth, but were translated into leathers, cottons or got a re-look in typical Prada color bursts instead. Simple looks were styled with majorly over-, or undersized belts, most of them having a nylon bag dangling off of them making it this season’s Prada styling cue, if we disregard the Pippi Longstocking-esque braids, all models with sufficiently long hair were given. This collection seems like an arrival to what Signora Prada and Raf Simons have been working on for a couple of seasons now: The reduction of the wardrobe and trying to make general sense of fashion’s state in a moment confronted with reappearing notions of maximalism. In Prada’s case, this isn’t a try, but rather a statement.

With this reduction process in mind, the silhouette can only get as compact as it is now. Some looks featured eclectic mixed prints all over looks that were dispersed throughout the line-up in familiar Prada motifs like the many three part ensembles consisting of pants, knitted vests and scarves tied around the hip, still all in the same skin-tight manner, letting go of an otherwise fully Adolf Loos-ian approach of banning ornament. Having earned a certain amount of criticism for the introduction of this new super skinny silhouette in last season’s coats, the duo insisted on it being fundamental for them. We figure, the smaller something is, the more control one has over it.