There are certain things you can reliably expect from a Prada show: a little awkwardness, a little elegance, and an almost pathological interest in the tension between the masculine and the feminine. But for spring summer 2027, Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons found their fixation in something particularly Prada: the skirt.
In fact, the skirt was the very centre of the Prada-verse. Every one of the collection’s 63 looks featured one, treating the humble garment like a kind of canvas for the House’s particular brand of contradiction. There were severe, high-slit pencil skirts, sheer and pleated iterations, raw-edged, kilt-like constructions and embellished columns, some of them glistening with rhinestone flowers.
And then came the Prada trick: making all that cloying femininity feel propulsive and undone. Lacy bralettes were paired with high-slit skirts, while frumpy sweaters were rolled to the elbow and slouchy shirting was tucked in with little concern for neatness. Oversized leather jackets weighed over wispy floral skirts, introducing distinctly masculine tension into otherwise delicate silhouettes. The result was lean but louche – clothes that looked polished from a distance, then progressively more unruly the closer you got.
The colour palette oscillated between Prada’s usual greyish restraint and sudden bursts of salacious colour: emerald greens, mustard yellows and red-hot reds punctuating a sea of slate, charcoal and marl (there was plenty of grey, naturally). But unlike some of Prada’s more maximalist recent collections, the prints here were largely contained within individual looks. Rather than competing for attention, each pattern had its own little universe.
Some of the most intriguing pieces, in my opinion, were the bralette-like tops made from shiny, body-con satin. Wrapped around the arms or shoulders of models like a second skin, they were almost sculptural in their construction – and clipped onto them, rather unexpectedly, were tiny Prada coin purses in matching fabric: banana yellow, turquoise blue…
The accessories continued the collection’s strange conversation between propriety and play. Bags were elongated and proper (in the east-west style that’s become incredibly in vogue of late), neat little rectangles with oversized straps that looked almost boat-like – the sort of bag that might belong to a particularly stylish corporate executive. Shoes were point-toed or open-toed, appearing in leather and satin, with occasional bows and tiny floral embellishments providing just enough sweetness.
And then there were the sunglasses. Their asymmetric, slightly futuristic shapes carried the unmistakable spirit of the 1980s. I immediately began to furiously Google the decade’s New Wave and avant-garde fascination with distorted eyewear to confirm the lineage. It was a particularly satisfying Prada move: taking something that once belonged to the fashion fringe, pushing it into novelty territory, and returning it to Italian high fashion where it began. The collection even produced a few signature, hairsprayed-to-the-gods 80s glam bouffants.
Presented at the Fondazione Prada, the showspace was stripped back to white walls and a glassy, industrial runway, allowing the clothes to do most of the talking. And they did. There was no great need for spectacle when the proposition was this simple: take one of Prada’s most familiar garments and worry at it from every possible angle.
A skirt can be prim or provocative, severe or romantic, corporate or completely strange. It can be worn with a bra, a sweater, a leather jacket or a button-down. It can be the most feminine thing in the room, then suddenly look almost utilitarian. At least, it’s all these thing according to Miuccia and Raf.
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