All Eyes Are On Miuccia Prada And Raf Simon's First Collection
Raf Simons' eagerly awaited debut as creative co-director with Miuccia Prada is setting the fashion world abuzz. The social buzz was triggered by an Instagram post that the maison launched on its channels earlier this week: "If you could ask a question to Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons about their first show, what would it be?". The questions sent in by the public will serve as the basis of the digital conversation that will take place between the Italian and Belgian designer immediately after the live streaming of the show.
But the starting question is: what unites two such different minds?
"I always strive to look for something new", says Prada, "but I am always influenced by the past" This sentiment is also found in the soul of the Simons style: "I find it interesting to create modern clothes for the modern woman", said Raf Simons earlier in 2012, "but I can also be inspired by nostalgia for a specific era."
For Simons, the partnership with Prada is an opportunity to "review the way in which creativity can evolve in today's fashion system. A new air and mode of creation that carries with it the promise of an evolution that will see two prolific designers with their own set of styles come together in harmony.
On the other hand, Miuccia herself declared that she does not want to remain a prisoner of her own style and that she always wants to look ahead. And if on the one hand we cannot imagine Miuccia Prada intent on listening to techno dei musicKraftwerk , music that is so dear to Raf, we’d like to think that with time during lockdown, art and design can converge, bringing the passions that the two brilliant minds have in common.
Origins
Simons was born in the town of Neerpelt, in rural Belgium, "among cows and sheep", in a family of humble origins, whilst Miuccia was born into Milanese bourgeoisie, which she firmly rejected. Simons’ aunts' homes were decorated with furniture by Verner Panton and Eero Saarinen, in a clean aesthetic that inspired the young man to undertake industrial design studies, cultivating a passion that continues today for mid-twentieth century aesthetics. Aesthetics is what instinctively unites his design philosophy to Miuccia, who, before becoming a stylist, completed a doctorate in political science and attended mime school for five years. She was considered a rebel and distributed political leaflets "wearing Saint Laurent and emeralds"; as she herself tells over the years, before inheriting the famous Italian leather goods company, Prada (founded in 1913) from her father Mario.
A shared passion for art and culture
There is no doubt that Prada's approach to art has marked a real turning point for the brand in an increasingly cultural approach: the designer and her husband Patrizio Bertelli revolutionized Milan, Venice and Shanghai with the concept of the Prada Foundation. In particular at the Fondazione Prada in Milan, Miuccia, together with the architecture star and friend Rem Koolhaas transformed a former distillery located in an isolated industrial area into a series of multisensory locations as perfect setting to admire works such as the installations by Damien Hirst, the works of Dear Accadi, Copley, Jeff Koons, Goshka Macuga and John Wesley.
The exhibition spaces itself are art on its own. Austere and eccentric at the same time and fully reflect the ugly chic for which the house is famous. “Everything” explained the designer when the Foundation was inaugurated in 2015, “becomes a tool for finding new ideas and doing something new”. And he added: “Everything changed when I let my interests into my work”. Not everyone knows there's a slide by artist Carsten Höller to connect for an adventurous journey from the third-floor studio to the brand's headquarters courtyard.
Art is similarly a strong presence in Raf's universe. For his first couture collection for Christian Dior, the designer had artist Sterling Ruby’s works on canvas had been transferred to the fabrics of his dresses. It was also Simon’s Calvin Klein that paid tribute to the King of Pop Andy Warhol and his prints for his last show in 2018, while the fetish art of Robert Mapplethorpe’s ceramics came together in the Priamavera-Simons Estate in 2017, and Pol Chambost inspired the garments of his Jil Sander Fall-Winter 2009 collection.
Image: Christian Dior Couture Fall 2012 Source: Pinterest
The merger of both worlds
And it is from Jil Sander that Raf crossed paths with the Group Bertelli, which directed him to German maison Jil Sander in 2005, a position in which he remained until 2012. Hence the formation of their first relationships, a knowledge and appreciation of Simons to build a new aesthetic of incisive elegance.
In conclusion, a new term could be coined for this feverish excitement of this new chapter in Prada's history: nostalgia for the future, looking to the past and pushing for acceleration towards the new.
Speculations aside, Miuccia denies that her entry is an operation designed for her withdrawal from the scene, and much more that of a union of common intentions. In the name of creativity that must be put before the normal mechanisms and the mere spectacle of fashion, a void of trumpeting ideas for their own sake, comes this fresh concept that both Raf and Miuccia want to firmly oppose.
THE EVOLUTION OF PRADA'S STYLE THROUGH THE SHOWS
The Prada Spring Summer 2021 Womenswear Collection will go live today at 8pm Singapore time, followed by a conversation with Miucca Prada and Raf Simons.
