The fact that Milan’s latest fashion week is for menswear is a mere detail for Miuccia Prada. Her autumn/winter 2015 show on Sunday evening, always the agenda-setting highlight of the schedule, had an almost equal split between men’s and women’s looks.
It follows two seasons where a few female models featured in the men’s show but upped the womenswear count significantly. Asked for the reason after the show, she said: “When I think about men, I also think about clothes for women. I describe these clothes as another point of view.”
Not one to let convention get in the way of an idea, Prada just showed clothes for both. In Prada’s world, gamechanging is as simple as that.
In an uncharacteristically revelatory mood, this move was announced with show notes on each seat. That is a rarity at a Prada show, where the audience is usually on their own in figuring out the thoughts of one of fashion’s biggest influencers each season. The notes declared this show as an opportunity to “measure what genders share, what they take from each other”.
The collection wasn’t about wearing each other’s clothes, however. Instead of the hackneyed boyfriend aesthetic for women, and androgyny for men, Prada looked to uniforms, a type of clothing where designs for men and women intentionally mirror each other, rather than borrow. Largely navy, black and grey, the collection featured double-breasted jackets with a naval influence, kilts for women like a school uniform and suits for men that had something of the sixties air steward about them.
The winning uniform, however, was one more familiar: that of the office worker at rush hour. Each model carried a work bag of some description, and the mac, a commuter staple, was worn by both genders.
There were then typical Prada details to add an off-kilter feel: drooped grosgrain ribbons on dresses, pineapple ponytails for women, shoes with moulded platforms and the cuff of a neat sleeve pulled up to reveal the lining.
The set was hardly literal either. It resembled a spaceship rather than an office. The audience sat in a series of anterooms with low ceilings, corridors with chrome mesh and photo wallpaper of a Milky Way pattern. Prada herself compared it to a nightclub – a comparison made all the more appropriate through a soundtrack of eighties electro.
The designer, wearing a kilt, referred to a “uniform, a strictness” as inspiration and said she refined the clothes down to the essential pieces: “You edit and you edit and all you are left with is the black and blue and grey.”
Except, that was, for a rogue plaid coat towards the end. “No one wanted to put it in but I was fixated,” she revealed. “I like some mistakes.” The addition of womenswear into the men’s collection isn’t one such mistake, however. Prada suggested that this dual gender show will continue at her shows during the menswear season, and that these pieces will be available to buy in addition to the existing womenswear collections.
An eye for new product categories comes at a good time for the brand. In the nine months to December 2014, net profits for the Prada Group dropped by 27.6% to £282.15m.
Analysts have said that is down to less consumer spending, and a drop in tourism in Europe. Leather goods, traditionally a core part of Prada’s business, were particularly affected, with a 6% decrease in sales. In response to this, the brand plans to produce more bags with lower price points, at around the £1,000 mark. A new Prada perfume will also be released later this year.
