Prada Spring 2016 MFW

Stop the presses!! All I can hear is “never say never when it comes to fashion!” these might have been the sagest words of one Carine Roitfeld and maybe it was the right time for me to have read them. This season sees my eyes adjusting and assessing collections by, yes their contents as always, but also by the company of their so called peers. Case in point is Prada!

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We all know that Miuccia, of the I don’t want to make women beautiful school,  Prada  is not my favorite designer rather she has become a seasonal whipping post for her high minded blah blah blah  that she translates into less then pretty and more than usually, very unattractive if not ugly clothes and shoes.

click on the image to enlarge

click on the image to enlarge

So, with that said, this season my eyes have adjusted and have seen a Prada collection that doesn’t seem to be so visually offensive as well as one that seems to be more commercial in so many ways. The color palette is actually palatable, the shoes are seemingly more “normal” and less shocking and there were oodles of handbags albeit of a very generic nature. The jackets seemed wearable in scale and fabrication, the dresses and suits, while not exactly what I would call figure flattering, were a shapeless affair but there were substantial suit looks and coat looks and standout broadtail fur looks. 

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click on the image to enlarge

The collection was stripe happy, if not graphically attractive overall and much lighter in feeling BUT as a whole, the collection was tricked out in accessories as if to subvert or distract from the simplicity of the shapes and silhouettes. My guess is that’s what makes Prada what it is but I can’t help but wonder what the clothes look like without the bells and whistles which must have some arcane inspiration. Can we talk about the 60s Christmas ornament earrings? By the way, 90% of this stuff won’t be pretty hanging on a rack!

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Besides the broadtail pieces, there were the striped metallic python coats and of course the last 3 exits of those paillette encrusted styles. Yes, those last 3 pieces brought me back to look at the collection again and again. No question that the last 1/3 of the collection will no doubt only be for 1% of the 1% but it was refreshing to actually see some beautiful pieces. What is incomprehensible to me was the overuse of the fabric covered male/female snaps which were used as many jacket closures. Yep, I get it, what else can one use on an organza jacket but that doesn’t make them more visually attractive or well designed and conceived.

So it is possible that this season even Ms. Prada heard the words “never say never!”