In Milan, Prada seeks freedom as a ‘response to the overload of contemporary culture’

Contemporary life can feel overwhelming, a constant bombardment of news, adverts and content on the endless scrolls of our screens. This year, Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons have been seeking lightness in the face of this fatigue. Their men’s collection, shown in June, unveiled a ‘fresh’ and ‘human’ vision that the pair described as the ‘easiest’ they’ve ever worked on. Its follow-up womenswear show, held this afternoon at Fondazione Prada’s Deposito space, shared a similar feeling of effortlessness. ‘A response to the overload of contemporary culture – a process of distillation, of filtration through clothes,’ is how the pair described it.

Prada’s shows are held each season in the cavernous Deposito, which has in previous seasons been transformed with curtains of falling slime, scaffold structures, and giant paper houses. June, however, was the first time its windows were uncovered – letting the light flood into the space to reveal a sparse setting, which was all but empty save for a few flower-shaped rugs scattered across the floor. This afternoon, the sunshine of Milan was allowed in once again, forming pools of warm light on a glossy, lacquered orange floor – a typically striking Prada hue. A longtime collaborator of Prada, the set was configured by Rem Koolhaas’ architecture studio, OMA.

Prada S/S 2026: a ‘new elegance’ for a world in flux

Through the sea of orange came Prada’s women, who were adorned in pieces made to ‘shift, change [and] adapt’. Liberating garments from what Mrs Prada and Simons called their typical ‘hierarchies’, everyday uniforms were shuffled up with lustrously designed eveningwear, so that the matching military shirt and press-front trouser set that opened the show felt as easy as an opulent satin mini dress encrusted with black sequins, worn over casual Bermuda shorts with dusty pink opera gloves (‘a Prada uniform can occupy the same position as evening dress,’ read the collection notes).

Elsewhere, there was a re-exploration of the classic elements of a woman’s wardrobe – skirts were held up with straps that looped over the shoulder, while draped bra tops ‘had shape without structure’. The result was an unconventional, fluid kind of femininity – a ‘new elegance’ for a world in flux.

For Miuccia Prada, this radical new wardrobe is a direct reaction to the uncertain times we are living. ‘Inevitably, when we create we think about the world around us,’ she said. ‘The future is unknown. This collection is about reacting to the uncertain – clothes that can shift, change, adapt. In the combination of the different elements, in this idea of composition, there is a choice and freedom, authority and agency for the woman wearing them. It is fashion that is connected inherently to the world, with a meaning and usefulness. How to face the world, and how to survive.’

At the same time, Simons was considering ideas of freedom – not only in his craft as a designer, but also in equipping women with autonomy when it comes to ideas of dress. ‘We started from a sense of freedom – of expressing this through clothes,’ he says. ‘There is the license to combine different elements, to compose, and there is also a physical liberation, moving away from fashion as a sculptural imposition on the body of a woman. We shifted into the opposite – physical emancipation, but also freedom as a state of mind… Uniform is part of a Prada history – for us, there is the idea that a woman can be beautiful, elegant and strong in a uniform. It is a challenge, to a hierarchy of perception. To free women from this.’

Catch up on the highlights from Milan Fashion Week S/S 2026 so far here.