Milan fashion week

Prada
Imagine a kind of ‘blind tasting’ of looks straight off the runway, what would we make of them? Take away the brand and the designer and it's almost impossible for us to judge, without the body of work that runs before.

That is exactly the case with Prada, where, without the summation of all that you know of Prada – the brand, Mrs Prada, her last collection, the ones preceding it and all the products – you might have a hard time trying to understand what you are seeing. (Then, sometimes, even with in-depth knowledge of all that, you still don’t know what exactly you are looking at).

Take the set: we know it’s a result of a close collaboration with Rem Koolhaas’s OMA, but what would someone make of it otherwise? An art installation with guests sitting atop mint green foam cubes, placed in a towering conical formation like a wedding cake? How do we judge the nymphs, fairies, castles and multi-coloured clouds painted and appliquéd on sheer layered tunics and dresses, worn with shoes whose heels look like they came out of cereal cartons (were they toadstools or bulbs?) set to a sound track lifted from music boxes? But that’s the magic of fashion and this is just the next instalment of Prada’s world.

Images: Trendstop.com