Editors: Jose Morales & Luis De Jesus
Milan, Italy – Taking into consideration the current times we are living in during the Covid-19 pandemic, the Prada Fall/Winter 2021 Menswear collection by Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons examines the intimate and personal wish for contact and our urge to exchange, connect and relate. The foundation of all is the individual: our body and its freedom.
Echoing the concept of sensory stimulation, geometric-patterned jacquard knits and leathers are combined with nylon, bouclé tweeds, and classic pinstripe wool suiting, using traditional and surprising colors. The interaction is projected outwards, to the series of rooms the models walk through during the digital show.
The show aimed to excite the senses with backdrops in vibrant colors, and isolated models walking to an original electronic soundtrack by Plastikman, aka Richie Hawtin. Panes of resin, marble, plaster, and faux fur formed the ‘non-spaces’ as envisioned and brought to life by Rem Koolhaas and AMO. The inviting rooms can pretend to be both interior and exterior, warm and cold, soft and hard, allowing total freedom of interpretation by concurrently being both and neither.
A similar doublespeak is revealed in the depiction of the body itself, with clothes reduced and minimalized in structure. The reasonable resolution is to return to the body: the clothes form a contoured “second skin,” helping to outline the figure in dynamic movement. On the opposite, the emphasis of the body through a process of reduction results in silhouettes that stand away from the frame, a reduction of shape in the garment.
The materials utilized in the set of the Fall/Winter 2021 Menswear digital show were upcycled from past Prada Group shows and will continue to be reused in the future through unique product installations and pop-ups around the globe. After, Prada Group will donate these materials to Meta, a circular economy project based in Milan, Italy, focusing on sustainable solutions to waste disposal within ephemeral events by gathering and recovering materials for selling and rentals. – GM
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