Miuccia Prada is like a teacher — she makes you think and essentially does what every teacher does, which is, to teach what they know. Alfred Wallis was one of the subjects at the boarding school like venue with benches in: church wood, granite marble resembling cookie dough and the more sinister: chocolate, white, buttercup yellow and olive green tiles. Backstage Mrs. Prada revealed that her, “inspirations are so many and so complex that to summarize is impossible. But I would say that the main sentiment that I had is going from bigness to smallness; from the big deal of the installation—big architecture and construction—the big deal of fashion, the big deal of art, the big deal of everything. And to go opposite. More human, more simple, more real.” A scene out of North Korea, perhaps, where everything is more simple aside from its politics.
Imagine Jeff Daniels’ character in The Squid and the Whale, but younger — that was the first look which spoke for the whole collection: urban formality. In Mrs. Prada-manner there was a lot of fur: overcoats, jackets, bags, belts and moccasins, but there was something more natural about them than the ones on the spring/summer 2014 runway — the colours of souk spices. Playing with different materials, Mrs. Prada brought a clash of mystic seventies with CIA geek with the models walking down in loose-fitted corduroy suits and acorn brown briefcases with metal necklaces attached with twigs, seashells and crystals.
Wear your art on your body — soft fuzzy sweaters with Wallis’s naïve dexterity of Cornwall printed on. Shirts layered with V-necks and gradient-coloured loafers suggested that men wearing them could be familiar with John Berger’s oeuvre.
Mrs. Prada’s favourite girls Lexi Boling, Lineisy Montero and Natalie Westling also made appearances in leather and tweed persimmon orange blazers, newsboy hats and skirts with fur patchwork
Currently creating a space for themselves online, Prada had three important messages in the form of mini-Instagram videos: “Domestic bliss,” “The revolution starts at home,” and, “Privacy is a luxury.” Recalling her youth during the seventies: “It was an important moment for protest, for humanity. Which is now very necessary.” The former Communist party as cliché as it sounds has learned from the mistakes of her generation and is teaching us, once again, how valuable, “the desire for reality, humanity, and simpleness,” is.
