Prada AW26
Gallery / 60 images
There could have been any number of mistakes during the Prada AW26 show, but we would never have noticed. The brand’s flavour du jour is disheveled, meaning that hair is unbrushed, straps fall off shoulders and cuffs are deliberately dirty. Next time you leave the house in a rush and look a mess, blame it on Prada. For their latest show, Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons returned to their regular spot, Milan’s Fondazione Prada, and delivered a show that built upon the frazzled foundations of their AW26 menswear collection. Although it was a show that felt familiar, Mrs P and Simons love to keep us on our toes. This season they dropped an unexpected twist: 60 looks, but only 15 models. How? Allow us to explain.
It’s been a busy month in Milan. First there was the Winter Olympics, hosted between Milan and Cortina, and now Milan Fashion Week is in full swing. Naturally, a few of the athletes stuck around for the shows, and today, the most decorated freeskier of all time, Eileen Gu sat front row at Prada. Beside her sat Carey Mulligan, Letitia Wright, Charli D’Amelio, South Korean musician Wooyoung and Love Story star Sarah Pidgeon.
Inside Foundazione Prada, the space looked similar to last month’s menswear show. It was relatively bare and deliberately derelict, with muted tones of soft pink and yellow (very different to SS26’s bright orange lacquer). Like the men’s show, fireplaces, doors and windows floated on the walls like a scene from a Magritte painting. Imagine a three-storey manor house with each of its floors removed, leaving only the crumbling four walls.
As the lights fell and the catwalk began, Julia Nobis opened the show in a slim wool coat buttoned to the top, a childishly colourful scarf wrapped around her neck and embellished pink pumps on her feet. She was followed by more models like Liu Wen in a chunky fisherman’s jumper, before Bella Hadid appeared in a crumbling jacket, similar to the ones we’d seen at the men’s show. So far, everything seemed to be going pretty regularly for a fashion show – that was until Nobis reappeared as the collection’s 16th model, quickly followed by Wen, and then by Hadid once more.
It quickly became clear that all 15 models who opened the show were reappearing again, but shedding a layer to reveal a new part of their outfits – a process they all repeated two more times, for a grand total of four laps each of the show space.
You know of the Frazzled English Woman, but have you heard of the Frazzled Italian Woman? That’s what we’re christening the brand new avatar Mrs P and Raf were pushing today – all unkempt hair, frizzy flyaways and mad, kohl-smudged eyes. She is absolutely esausta. Think of her as the stressed-out mother to Miu Miu AW23’s messy little librarians. Even her constant de-layering throughout the show – frantically ripping off layers backstage before rushing back to the runway – added to her overall frazzlement.
“As a woman, your life is layered – each day demands not only a shifting of clothes, but a richness of identities within yourself,” said Mrs P in show notes, of her frazzled new muses. “You make choices, you decide who you want to be, how you want to present yourself, adopting characters, redefining yourself. This collection reflects the complexity of life, and that inherent complexity of women.”
As you might expect, the first 15 looks mostly focused on outerwear, with the anorak capelets returning from the men’s show (but with an added fur trim) plus trench coats covered in trinkets and a red leather jacket. For the second go around, most models stripped down to crumpled shirts, satin skirts and even a bright pink dress, while others took off their outerwear to reveal… more coats underneath. Rather than a paint-by-numbers de-layering, each subsequent revolution perfectly mapped onto each other, the vibe seemed to be a bit of a free for all, with some models still in coats while their colleagues had de-robed to thinly layered knitwear.
The third revolution of models undressed once again, with Hadid revealing a white smock dress with loud prints at its hem. Once again, each model seemed to be undressing at their own pace, with some still wearing coach jackets, and others in granny knits and knee high socks. Finally, Nobis reappeared a fourth time to lead the final rotation of looks – translucent tulle slip dresses, crumpled high-waisted shorts, plus more printed smocks and colour-blocked crop tops.
Scroll through the gallery at the top of the page for the entire AW26 collection
