Prada SS27 wants the fashion world to Keep It Simple, Stupid Menswear

Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons have been co-conspirators for 13 straight seasons now, but their Prada collections now seem like the product of one single psyche. The union has become so pronounced that, after today’s SS27 men’s show at Milan Fashion Week, rather than address the press separately, they sent out quotes attributed to both of them together, as if they were from one hive mind. Within those quotes, they had some rather strong words for the rest of the industry, even going so far as to point out one particular design practice that they “hate”. So, what’s got them so riled up then? Read on to find out more…

The invites for this season’s show arrived the day before the catwalk – long packages delivered to guests’ homes and hotel rooms. Inside were short translucent rods with the Prada logo at one end, and when a little switch was flicked the rod transformed into an LED light stick. Were Raf and Mrs Prada about to take us to a rave? Or were the invites about bringing clarity to an industry bogged down by its own image?

Perennial Prada boys Troye Sivan and Louis Partridge made their way to Milan for the show, as did Club Kid director Jordan Firstman, Hamnet actor Noah Jupe, and Ruaridh Mollica, star of the 2024 queer coming-of-age film Sebastian. Also making their way to the front row were Jay, Jake, Sunghoon, Sunoo, Jungwon, and Ni-Ki of K-pop group Enhypen, who caused an absolute meltdown outside as waiting fans lost their minds at the sight of them.

Elsewhere, it seems that the basketball fever ignited by the Knicks’ championship win has extended farther afield, too. The Lakers’ Jarred Vanderbilt arrived in a patterned camp collar shirt, while Anthony Edwards of the Timberwolves went for a simple white shirt and stonewash trouser combo.

Prada is known for completely transforming its show space every season at its Fondazione Prada, and SS27 was a huge departure from the last. Those LED strip lights from the invites now reappeared in full size, as rows of fluorescent tubes lighting up the room beneath the transparent floor. Once the room was full, guests’ seats were arranged in a maze-like formation of parallel and perpendicular lines, the room still and waiting for the first model to appear on the catwalk.

Though this was a men’s collection, the catwalk began with a pigtailed Julia Nobis in slimline white denim and an oversized blazer, followed by her doppelganger male model, also in pigtails and head-to-toe black leather. What followed was an exercise in classic Prada design, but imbued with the kind of modern vigour we expect from a Raf Simons offering. Close-cut silhouettes skimmed the body while revealing sexy flashes of hip, and wardrobe staples like sweater vests and leather jackets were subtly reproportioned to subversive effect.

There was an air of slick efficiency and wastelessness that emanated from the collection – barely any bells and whistles, and just enough fabric to constitute the garments themselves. The most aesthetically daring moments came from the see-through shirts and trousers, whose skeleton-like seams were joined together by translucent fabric, and also the clashing 70s-inspired prints, that were worn together on tight trousers and brash knits.

After the show, Mrs Prada and Raf revealed that the collection, called Clarity, was centred on the concept of “fundamental” fashion, which acts as an “antidote to complication” that is seen in modern design. “The ambition was to do something new with ‘nothing’ – against exaggeration, against complex material,” the pair told the press after the show. “Against useless design. There is nothing that I hate more in this period than useless design – this collection expresses this concept.”

The approach is reminiscent of the KISS acronym, a design principle associated with the aircraft engineer Kelly Johnson, simply meaning: Keep It Simple, Stupid. If most systems work best in their least complex forms, why complicate them with extraneous add-ons? Raf and Miuccia are transferring this design philosophy to fashion, and the results are a streamlined and precise SS27 collection.