Prada A/W 2025’s ‘dishevelled’ beauty look confronted the big tech algorithm

The Prada A/W 2025 collection was, as Wallpaper* fashion features editor Jack Moss writes in his report, Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons’ ‘pitch for liberation’. Titled Raw Glamour, it subverted typical codes of ‘feminine beauty’, not just through clothing but also via hair and make-up, courtesy of Guido Palau and Lynsey Alexander.

‘A feeling of dishevelment ran throughout – not least the hair, which had been teased and ruffled, as if at the end of a long evening (or, indeed, rolling out of bed),’ Moss continues of the show, which took place yesterday (27 February) during Milan Fashion Week.

Prada A/W 2025 beauty by Guido Palau and Lynsey Alexander

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There were distinct echoes of the ‘frazzled’ ponytails Palau created for Miu Miu A/W 2023: a collection that interrogated ‘ways of looking’ and the push and pull of ‘attraction and repulsion’. Here, he used static electricity to lift loose strands at the crown into delicate tufts, by rubbing hair with balloons.

Miu Miu is often thought of as Prada’s ‘little sister’. And certainly, the Prada A/W 2025 woman is a grown up version of her younger self, taking a decidedly darker road through life. On the likes of Julia Nobis, who opened the runway, and two new faces Xaria Carter and Maelie Harambat cast in the show by Ashley Brokaw, Palau backcombed hair into a matted tangle, as though a once perfect blow out had been unwashed and slept on for several days and nights.

Similarly, Lyndsey Alexander made ‘unkempt’ eyebrows the central focus of A/W 2025’s make-up, lending them an exaggerated fuzz and ultra-dense appearance with Prada Beauty’s new Pradascope mascara and soon-to-be-released eye pencils.

In contrast, complexions had a bare appearance, whilst lips were given just a touch of balm. ‘There’s a juxtaposition of ugly and beautiful, coming together to create something quite extraordinary,’ Alexander told Wallpaper* in a 2023 interview, a statement that rings true in her work on yesterday’s show.

Here, co-creative directors Mrs Prada and Raf Simons – alongside Palau and Alexander – have told the story of a woman who is disinterested in the so-called ‘clean girl aesthetic’, multi-step routines and endless ‘shower hacks’ peddled on Instagram and TikTok.

This is a continuation of the agenda laid out at the recent Prada womenswear and menswear seasons, designed as ripostes to the prescriptive, pervasive – and often deceptive – algorithmic image. (As Wallpaper’s Jack Moss reported, the house’s S/S 2025 womenswear show was a rejection of the ‘derivative and expected’, with Mrs Prada stating backstage: ‘We are driven by algorithms. We like things because people tell us to like them.’)

Prada tapped Ottessa Moshfegh to write a series of short stories to accompany the S/S 2025 Ten Protagonists campaign, in which Carey Mulligan plays a roster of different personas, donning various wigs by Guido Palau.

Moshfegh is renowned for her lurid and ‘unsavoury’ female narrators, their beauty, grooming and hygiene habits – or sometimes lack thereof – speak to an unwillingness to conform to the societal expectations dictated by America during various points in history.

‘What does femininity mean today? How can it be defined?’ read the Prada A/W 2025 show notes.

Questions around beauty standards for women, across every demographic and culture, are ever-evolving and infinite. But during a time when technological progression leads to political regression, Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons seem to be saying that these questions are even more urgent to ask.

prada.com