A quiet swan song

Prada’s latest collection as seen through the lens of Willy Vanderperre. Screen grab: Prada/YouTube

It is true that this is Miuccia Prada’s last. But it is not clear if this is her final collection as a solo design head. Ms Prada has not officially and publicly said anything. But in the show notes, photographer Juergen Teller mentioned this collection as her last. It was announced in February that Raf Simons will join Ms Prada as a co-designer. So, it is possible that she is not retiring. Yet.

Bowing out, Ms Prada chose to present something quiet, but not without the essence that made Prada an important brand in her tenure, an essence beautifully distilled. The clothes were presented in mostly industrial-ish settings through the lenses of five “creatives”, some of them photographers-turned-cinematographers: Willy Vanderperre, Juergen Teller, Joanna Piotrowska, Martine Sims, and Terrence Nance. These are artists with different views, but, sadly, the results, fell short of the strength of the clothes.

Juergen Teller’s interpretation of the season’s look. Screen grab: Prada/YouTubeAs seen by Joanna Piotrowska. Screen grab: Prada/YouTube

Like most of the luxury brands showing online the past two months, Prada’s five filmic contributions under the guise of The Show That Never Happened, did not quite happen either—they were just a quintet of shorts that collectively said nothing, except perhaps that the photographers/artists would have been better off sticking to static output. To be sure, reproducing Prada’s usually arresting runway shows and the alluring clothes in a form not yet thoroughly explored is hard, but it is not really fair to expect viewers to digest the equivalent of a first-year film school project. Prada has come this far and worked with the best this long to be interpreted as these meaningless works?

Willy Vanderperre opened the series with a fashion-show-like display that takes place in what could be a set for the next Saw (if anyone’s interested in its revival). Continuing with settings evocative of slasher flicks, Juergen Teller’s piece was filmed in an industrial space that Freddy Kruger might have been happy to lure his victims into. Here the clothes were seen at their clearest. The polish photographer Joanna Piotrowska created her video with odd actions and stationary moments that recalled Japanese horror movies. American artist Martine Syms shot in a cinema that also looked like a lecture theatre with models just before, and at the moment, they turned into zombies. Or, was that theatre of the absurd. The multi-hyphenate Terrence Nance’s attempt, with unspeaking people confronting A Thing, ended up looking like a trailer of a B-grade movie. Or is that just cool?

Martine Syms brings Prada into the cinema. Screen grab: Prada/YouTubeTerrance Nance sports-themed suggestion. Screen grab: Prada/YouTube

Although the Prada collection was allowed to be communicated through multiple voices, the clothes delivered a clearer and more singular message. They seemed to say that this is what a world in crisis now needs. Ms Prada was on point when she said, “the value of our job—to create beautiful, intelligent clothes.” The beautiful and intelligent (smart enough, in fact, that she called them “machines for living”), especially, resonated. After an extended break from fashion and the world we knew, Prada offered a sense of certainty for uncertain times. These are clothes you know you’ll wear now and at all times in the future, not only when the bars open, when parties resume, and when fun can come rushing back.

Some people might consider the clothes austere, but we find the pared-down-to-the-essentials refreshing. The men get reliable, relaxed, close-fit suits, some in suiting fabrics, some in their signature nylon. The shirts look like as they should be, and not more. For the women, a mix of Fifties femininity and post-modern utility. The suits are exemplary and Zoom-ready, and the dresses are alluring and can stand the test of time, even the bow tied at the waist. Purists might consider the metal plague/logo superfluous—those positioned in the middle of the breastbone, right on the cleavage, make the bustier-bodices look like bum-bags re-purposed to cover the bust. But that, perhaps, is the quirk that attests to the believe—and appeal—that with Prada, nothing is as simple as it seems.