Daily Front Row

2008 September 24

Prada - Milan Spring 2009

Prada Spring 2009
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(MILAN) We're willing to perch on anything if it means sitting through an experience like Miuccia Prada's idea of spring. Naturally, she presented in a raw galley space, eschewing proper seats for layered wooden pod-like structures. Editors did their best to lean, if not really sit. But once the first look emerged from the runway, inconvenient thoughts were submerged underneath sheer wonder about what Miuccia's done this time. What accounted for the abundance of wardrobe staples? There were bras, skirts, even aprons--forged in hand-molded Italian textiles and rendered in extraordinarily creative ways. "It was primitivism," said Prada after the show, suggesting that these particular pieces exist in the female subconscious. A practical black anorak--shown with tiny shorts--was the chicest possible one; fitted and draped in exactly the right way. A loose scoop-neck tank paired with a pencil skirt proved that above all, clothing should look easy, even if it's not. "These are the basic staples in a woman's life," Prada continued. But there was nothing basic about the footwear--alarmingly high platforms in wild snakeskin motifs--or the last few looks, which were entirely gilded. "Those were fantasy," Prada confessed. Indeed--the collection keenly tapped into the female subconscious, where practicality and its opposite are both ardently desired. This season, Miuccia Prada understood what women want—even before we've fully recognized it ourselves.