Milan Women’s Highlights S/S 2023 Part 1

Intimacy, domestic life and voyeurism at Prada

September 23, 2022

No matter what people make of the new Prada, which is conceived by Signora Miuccia and Monsieur Simons, one thing is for sure. The Prada-Bertelli family is the only fashion clan with a reasonable succession plan. And they have been executing it for a while. Even Patrizio Bertelli is handing over the business reigns to son Lorenzo more and more. Yes, the old mischievous Prada days are gone and a new darker design world is beaming out of the white Prada tower where the shows are held. The design duo hired Danish film director Nicolas Winding Refn – famous for Drive with Ryan Gosling – who conceived a black paper panopticon with AMO featuring peeping hole windows and an immersive installation. The director created a series of short films exploring the lives of women, a theme dear to Prada’s heart, which allowed the audience to look out, to be the voyeur at the peeping hole.

But hey, the plan seems to be working. Raf’s big idea to put the Prada triangle front and center on the clothes is a clever exercise in branding and the company is doing good business worldwide. Even their new fragrance “Paradoxe“ comes in the shape of a triangle.

Installation designed by Nicolas Winding Refn

The continuation?

The classic tailoring from the men’s show carried over into this women’s with gray opening looks and even the same double zipper detail on pants.

Gray opening looks

The silhouette?

Slightly 60’s American Hollywood in Hitchcock movies, the show had a dangerous undercurrent with pale silk columns and shift dresses somehow idealizing the American housewife using a paper-based fabric, which seemed thrown at the body. Raf and Miuccia both like dramatic opera coats, which were fused with rough leather, a new Prada staple since last year with trains of fabric often in industrial colors like from a car mechanic garage – messy brown and black.