There was something about Prada’s runway show that’s very unsettling. Some of the looks had shirt collars that were turned up unkemptly, sleeves that were hanging and dragging, and clothes wrongly buttoned. The season’s highlighted shirts, made in collaboration with artist Christopher Chemin, were desirable but thematically dark despite the pretense of cheery colors—one reinterprets the catastrophic story of Noah’s Ark, and another depicts a chaotic fight between Sigmund Freud, Frida Kahlo, and a bunch of the most eccentric personalities who ever lived. Even more intimidating was the setting itself. To a layman, it’s a cold structure, with dramatic lighting and an odd, raised center stage. In Prada’s own words, it is an auto-da-fé, a ritual of public penance for condemned heretics.
Backstage, designer Miuccia Prada mentioned “immigration, famine, assassination”…
