prada

Love it or hate it, for the past few season Miuccia Prada continues to tackle big themes in what results in presentations that are singular in their voice but abstruse in their aesthetic choices. Last spring it was a 40s pin-up and for fall this year it was hombre dyed burlap sacks and drab colors. There were pieces here and there that were strong in each collection but as a cohesive whole they don't appeal to a mass audience, which is interesting because Prada is a major global brand. Is Prada too prescient for this world or is she simply exposing the absurdity of what it is pretty, flattering, and expected from fashion intended for the masses? Whatever it is, one thing that you can't take away from Prada is her powerful conviction and thinking woman's attitude. There's always a curiosity in her clothes and it spoke once again for spring 2008. Turning to Art Nouveau, London in the late 60s and early 70s, and all things curvilinear and in bloom for inspiration, Prada concocted a show that was brimming with ideas and concepts about what it means to be a smart, powerful, and modern woman, much like herself. The full skirts and gingham prints called to mind a more traditional woman but her coyness is equally sexy in clingy body suits and the flash of skin on the neckline that seemed more revealing than what her Milanese contemporaries blurted out on the runway (See: DSquared). The clash of prints and colors that don't presumably go together creates a graphic and absurd take on our age-old and arbitrary ideas about color matching. The models eyes were rimmed with a sooty and extreme smoky eye look that was another traditional idea of what sexy is but it had a great tension when you looked at the kooky chiffon dresses that were decorated with fairies and nymphs, implying another friction between something more natural as opposed to something so manufactured and established by man. It all seemed a bit fantastical but similar to the Marc Jacobs show, you feel like you're in the mind of Prada and with a collection like this, it's a mind that is attuned to exploration and innovation. This show was a bold proposition on traditionalism, but as she has shown from time and time again, maybe that's Prada not biting the hand that feeds her but offering another extension of traditions and values.