Prada S/S 2015

Jeanswear is a fashion record that has been played and replayed, but Miuccia Prada took to the turntable and spun it differently for spring. For her first idea, in which suiting was made to look like denim, Prada cut dark blue wool tailored jackets and pants in classic jeanswear shapes and embroidered their borders with heavy yellow stitching resembling a paper clothing pattern. From afar, the models looked like childlike dolls wearing jeans - while up close, the clothes had a cool tromp l'oeil effect. When Prada actually used denim in the collection, she selected a pristine cornflower blue version and cut it to look like trousers rather than jeans, and trimmed it in rich leather.  Even the girls got in on the act - wearing both the denim trousers as well as lovely pleated cotton dresses with denim patches. The overall effect, however, was nowhere near the slackers, skaters, hippies, mall rats or any other demographic usually associated with jeans. If anything, the Prada men looked like poindexters: skinny-legged nerds with flood-length pants, shirts buttoned fastidiously up to their clavicles, 1970s v-neck sweaters and slip-on ergonomic loafers with rubber wings that folded up from the sole over the uppers. Nerdy but cool - now that's a clean, new look for denim that we can certainly live with.

Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans