MILAN (Reuters) – Italian fashion label Prada offered sheer vest-like dresses and embellished coats for women’s wardrobes next winter at its Milan Fashion show on Thursday, presenting a collection its designers described as looking at “the history of women”.
With a front row that included reality television star Kim Kardashian watching her sister Kendall Jenner on the catwalk, the runway presentation came on the second day of Milan Fashion Week, which is hosting mainly in-person shows – rather than digital presentations – this season.
Designers Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons said they had continued a theme of stripping back looks from previous collections for the autumn/winter 2022 line, called “An Ideology of Prada”.
These included white vest tops worn with two-tone skirts and sheer see-through dresses. Tailored blazers had large shoulders while coats bore rounded necklines. Some coats had chains across the neck or feathers on the sleeves.
“This collection is about the history of women, the history of people, not the history of fashion,” Miuccia Prada said in shownotes.
“Tradition is about humanity – connections between people, passing down knowledge. A human history. These ideas interested us – to look at how and why things had been created in certain ways. But there is only a trace, a memory. It’s not retro, at all.”
Models also wore matching jackets and skirts in dark grey and black, elongated and belted bomber jackets decorated with sparkling florals and printed jumpers paired with polo necks.
“In taking from the past we translate – the beauty, quality of tradition, even of couture. This is always something Prada has done,” Simons said.
“Valuing history includes us valuing Prada’s history – I think of revolutionary moments in Prada’s history, and we echo them here. There are never direct recreations, but there is a reflection of something you know, a language of Prada. And those moments have helped define our idea of beauty today, which we are now redefining.”
Milan Fashion Week, which will also include shows from Giorgio Armani, Versace and Gucci, runs until Feb. 28.
(Reporting by Marie-Louise Gumuchian; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)
