An instinctive attraction to history. The Prada Autumn/Winter 2024 collection by Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons fuses fashion with fragments of stories, in an exploration of concepts of beauty, of a contemporary world made up of memories. A love story with the past.
Knowledge of history not only inspires contemporaneity, but defines it: the clothes refer to different eras, other times that echo in sync and recontextualised. The past is a tool, a means of learning used to try to invent something new. However, more than an intellectual analysis, this collection is an emotional reaction to ideals of beauty that still seem resonant.
The past literally shapes the present. Elements taken from history influence today’s stereotyped garments, such as the biker jacket, the bomber jacket and knitwear, changing their lines and details. The concept of the fragment is literally reflected in the details incorporated into the clothing and in the cut-out parts throughout the body, stripped away to expose the internal layers. The skirts, in which the impalpable silk contrasts with the tailored wool, form a façade of fabric on which delicacy and vigor alternate.
The tight silhouette is attenuated by an accentuated verticality. Shoes and hats take proportions to the extreme, while clothes hug the body, releasing its femininity. In turn, the gestural qualities of the feminine universe become intrinsic, with suspended bags and sunglasses that recall make-up. Ways of being become structures of doing, intangible traces of human lives that take on concreteness.
Materialization and reconstruction can change the language of form, altering perception. Traditional masculine materials are reworked to make them intrinsically feminine. And the clichés of femininity – bows, ruffles and ruffles – are reconsidered, their meaning radically reevaluated. Why do they persist? Why do they attract?
The parade raises questions and triggers answers, marking the beginning of a conversation with the world, an exchange of ideas. This instinct, this desire to communicate and express ourselves, is a fundamental human impulse like touching ourselves, transmitting our feelings through the clothes we wear.
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