when it all falls down

Prada
Spring/Summer 2009
This may be the evil sadist in me, but isn't this kind of fun to watch what with the world going to shit?

arsenic and old lace

Prada Fall/Winter 2008
Lookbook
Artwork by Lok Jansen and Jeroen Koolhaas

psycho

Patrick Petitjean photographed by Steven Meisel
Prada fall/winter 08
Is it just me or does this have a certain "American Psycho" vibe to it?

milan: prada

A look from Prada Spring/Summer 2009
via Frillr
A polo that could easily be a polo dress with matching grandpa socks. Miuccia, you naughty girl you.

prada

I love it when you can see a designer working through a single idea for a collection. To some that connote a one dimensionality, but there is nothing simple about Miuccia Prada's fall collection. Lace, S&M, death--it was all there and then some. Prada really thinks about women in context to what clothes project about gender, power, and sexuality. This season there was a slight elegiac tone but it was perverse and no way completely sad or dead on arrival. As the summer turns into fall the leaves change and the air gets colder, and in a way, the world around us dies a little bit. For fall, Prada presented clothes fit for a funeral, minus the somber, bloodless sensation one gets at such an occasion. These clothes have a coy, almost grandma-ish flair, but a strong scent of sex, which is always a pleasure for Prada to put on display.

The collection is more about details, if you ask me. What do we immediately think of when we think of black lace: a veil for a funeral, Victoria's Secret, or something that tickles the feverish fetishist in all of us? That was all true to some degree in the inherent transparency of the lacy collection, which was sexy in theory, but the just below knee length that most of the coats and dresses came in, that is typically for older women, didn't come across as a Victoria's Secret commercial. Black, nude, baby blue, and shades of orange were dominate throughout, with the nude and baby blue showing through the lace. These are colors that I think of as being wistful and plain. There was nothing plain about the severe hair and thick eyebrows on the models that made them look as tough as those hard looking boots and cuff bracelets. The shoes had a slight melancholy tone as bits of leather seem to fall away from the shoe, as if to imply that everything dies, even designer heels. The perversity in the shoes existed in stacked collars, lots of buttons, and see through dickies paired over button down blouses. The caged in feeling was present in her menswear collection in January, but at the time she said she was punishing men for the hoops women have to jump through to dress themselves, thus giving the buttons in the back of their shirts and cummerbunds that dipped into pants giving the illusion of a thong protruding. The covered up look for women seemed to be less about punishment than about being a woman in mourning choosing not to show everything, with a slight desire for something lustful to return after the passing of her love.

For a $6 billion business you would think Prada would be concerned about wearability, but it seems more and more that the presentation of her clothes is an open space for the ideas that brew around in her mind. If things progress in this clean, sexy direction, she can keep thinking out loud as much as she wants.

the wild party

I managed to survive my birthday weekend, so pardon the loose ends of recent entries that I will tie up this week. Things to look forward to: wrap up of New York Fashion Week, reviews of "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" and "Southland Tales", part 2 of my Sundance escapades, and how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb.

Until then, this should hold you over as I catch up on some needed rest..

"Trembled Blossoms"
dir., James Lima

waisted

Why this look from the Prada Fall/Winter 08 does not work:
1. Flesh toned body stocking posing as a top. And it looks possibly ribbed. Yuck.
2. Collared dickie. Yuck.
3. Cummerbund masked as a protruding thong strap. Yuck.
4. Full pant with foot long, low slung crotch in cobalt. Yuck.
5. Said full pant tucked into laquered brick red rainboots. Yuck and more yuck.

Is this really supposed to be fashion forward? Sadly this is a misstep for Miuccia and her wild mixbag of ideas and ill-subverted references. Chin up Miuccia, there's always next season.

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.