Context offers a reinterpretation of classics, a new perspective on a common language of clothing.
The Prada Resort 2020 collection presents an alternative viewpoint on the familiar, a seditious simplicity. A contrast with the increased complexity of the world, pulling back to the sincere, pure and true, the collection proposes an unexpected means of subversion, elegance as sedition. A language of hyper-classicism is recalibrated, forming a different syntax. Clothes are paradigmatic – overcoats, brass-buttoned blazers, eased skirts, cable knit sweaters, utility suiting.

Outfits are composed of singular, honest fabric types: cotton poplins, drill and gabardine, faille, leather and suede. Patterns are modest pinstripes and checks, micro-pattern florals and embroideries of truly naïf flowers. The palette is restrained, revolving around navy, pale blue, multichromatic brights, tonal hues. There are gestures to archetypes of elegance, real glamour. Scarves are executed like boas of paillettes, and jewelry comprises drop earrings and sautoirs of baroque pearls. The collection is focused on intimacy – on closeness, attention drawn to details, a sense of the handmade. These evoke the idea of the individual, its power and strength. Shifting contexts open ideas to reinterpretation, to suggestive dichotomies – rich and humble, youth versus heritage, urbanity against nature, uptown and downtown. The context of New York City imbues garments with specific cultural memory, offering a distinct perspective paradoxical to their universality.

For the Prada 2020 Resort Show, AMO takes over the Piano Factory, Prada US’s headquarters, and reinterprets it as an intimate setting for social gathering. The set for the show, conceived for the seventh floor of the Herzog & de Meuron-designed building, is devised as a tactile interior to contrast with the industrial character of the architecture. A series of lounging areas fill the space, providing a sense of comfort and coziness, an ‘endless’ camel-toned carpet covering both floor and integrated seating elements. All other aspects of the set, from coffee tables to columns, are characterized by a gloss pink coating, the panorama bathed in the glow of pink neon, transforming the utilitarian inside into a fantasy of summer outside.

The atmosphere of the showspace expands into different territories of the property: the industrial courtyard and parking lot are transformed into an unexpected welcome of joyful pink elements. Through the windows of the seventh floor, the cityscape of New York contrasts sharply with the lush interior, the landscape overcast with the rose-tinted hue emanating from within. On the sixth floor, the location of the after-party, pink columns and bars clash against the rough finish of the concrete floor of the structure. Hints of original function are still perceived through glass walls that divide the space from the bureau’s meeting rooms. The rose-hued, ecstatic haze brightens and embellishes the otherwise industrial appearance of the Piano Factory. Concept by OMA/AMO