Friday, September 23, 2011

Milan Fashion Week Coverage

Prada Spring 2012

Miuccia Prada once again conjures a paradox for the audience to mull over, as her saccharine display appeared, for once, slightly out-of-character. With “Sweetness” as the simple explanation for her SS12 collection, there is always more to a Prada collection than meets the eye. What is actually developing on the stage is a deft interplay between modesty and immodesty. Prada asks the question, “Is it the clothes that make the girl sweet, or is it the other way around?”

A bandeau top and high-waisted plissé skirt in robin’s egg blue open the show, made modest by the sloping shoulder of an oversized cocoon coat. This coat is signature Prada, but it was a silhouette that caught on like wildfire a few years ago and is now duplicated elsewhere on the runway. It’s good to see it back in the hands of its master.

The coat appears several times on the Prada runway in a variety of patterns and colors. Once it’s off, however, a less modest story is told by the belly-baring two-piece separates that head down the runway. They’re sweet in a tawdry kind of way, like a costume from John Waters’ Cry Baby.

Leather takes over, and here’s where the collection adds another curious progenitor: cars. As a Milanese woman, Prada knows that Italian men pride themselves on Cars and Women. Combining them both seemed a natural extension of this modesty vs. immodesty debate that plays out on her runway. A sweet girl in a fast car is a man’s dream come true. While Phoebe Philo used cars as inspiration for her Celine FW11 collection, this is a different take entirely. Instead of turning upholstery into garments (à la Philo), Prada emblazons images of cars and flames – images that lick at the bottoms of beachy dresses and leather skirts Never far away from deeper meaning, Prada still urges you to have fun with this one. Whether you think it’s as sweet as Coney Island cotton candy, or as latent with meaning as a dream, this collection should still tickle your fancy.

written by GRACE GORDON|photos: courtesy of GoRunway

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