Fashion as fragments of history

No show in Milan seems more important these days than Prada, where the designers are seen as mining fashion and design history in order not to repeat it.

This season, the duo of Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons worked with a whole gang of recognizable fabrics, silhouettes and symbols, but by jumbling them up unexpectedly they created something very new. In fact, the most contemporary collection so far this season.
 
The key element was a series of dresses and coat-dresses which were classical at front, before becoming lingerie at the back, or expanded trouser legs at the front. Skirts as if made of upside-down men’s blazers, but cut so well they always looked super stylish, and then often worn with board member double-breasted jackets. 

The net effect, counter intuitively, was rather romantic. Authoritative women in search of love, with a companion in fantastically crushed silk coats, cool cocktails and classy tailoring.
 
“Working on fragments of history, to learn something. Everything from fashion to politics and art. Taking away a piece of the past is not conservative it is liberating,” explained Miuccia post-show, surrounded by some 40 editors craning to record her quiet replies on their mobile phones. 
 
Fragments of fabrics too, like the great open sheaths made of shards of ribbons, and paired with hussars’ boots and cavalry helmets, again made of ribbons. All ideal for an art season fete or dance party. 
 
The duo’s invitation – a rectangular piece of brown paper cut out with the letter P in a romantic sugary white script- suggested one might be attending a ball. Which, Miuccia, noted was a symbol for all women, even if the tough chic she showed suggested that fashion’s duty is also to liberate them. 
 

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There was even a new leather baseball jacket in battered brown or ecru, each embroidered with P 13, riffing on the year of the brand Prada’s birth. Though, Miuccia cautioned: “I never want to send messages with numbers and logos!”
 
And in a clever styling trick, the models wore grommeted belts around the crook of the arms, the better to hold a series of new bags, a look sure to ignite a real trend. All staged inside a show-space with a glass floor, below which was a small stream, mossy banks, fallen leaves an pebbles.
 
Ramping up the attitude with a great series of hats – shaggy sea boat captains; gunnery officers; highway patrolmen off duty. Various silhouettes, all the way to the tightest biker jackets with funnel necks.
 
Before climaxing with rippling technical calico coats with funnel necks in expansive 50s shapes – another look sure to be copied by lesser talents. Suggesting a contemporary elegance even as they dipped into the past.
 
“We were thinking of the idea of beauty and love, love for fashion, history or music,” added Raf, before a swarm of movie stars appeared, from tiny Emma Watson to mammoth Gwendoline Christie.