Scene setting: Staged inside a high, industrial space at the Prada Foundation, OMA constructed a raised platform: guests looked down onto the catwalk designed to evoke a fictional outdoors. Graphic green triangles mimicked smart topiary; smart purple shapes stood in for dramatic drop shadows; at the centre was a large sculpture of a man on a horse. The court was lined with red-light bathed doorways. The staging evoked the spirit of artist Giorgio de Chirico’s surrealist 1952 painting Piazza d’Italia.
Mood board: The collection was smart and prim; there was a return to the Prada palette of browns, purples, bottle greens and grey. Fray-edge waist jackets, frill bib shirts and stirrup pants. Glossy shearlings. Jumbo cords in jewel colours. Oversize wool blazers. Standout were the geometric prints that had a flatness to them and were applied to shirts and matching slim pants. ‘Formal is trendy at the moment and let’s say that with the big complications around the world, the only thing that makes me calm and relaxed and optimistic is to give value to work,’ Prada said backstage. A/W 20 riffed on formal work clothes with a heroism and sharp confidence. The show was about everyday heroes and, Prada said, ‘a perspective on heroes who were not heroic.’
Sound bite: Questions floating around the show circuit are concerned with one thing: sustainability. Everything – from the plastics used for invitations or an extravagant set – is up for dissemination. Last year, Prada launched their Re-Nylon project, introducing a sustainable line of their iconic bags. Backstage, Prada was direct: ’Everyone talks about sustainability but it has become a question everybody asks – and in one year this has become a real thing and I am very optimistic.’ A/W 20’s clothes look formal and beautiful because they are well thought out. Asked about the stirrups added to the bottom of trousers she replied: ‘we just liked it’. Clear, concise. Chic.
