Prada's undercover spies

On the same floor that served as the backdrop for the Prada Men's FW24 in January, darkness descended while a model covered in dozens of satin bows advanced under small spotlights. The first garments of the new Prada Women's FW24 collection, except for one candy pink episode, are dark, black, and fluttering like a crow's feathers, but they have been paired with police helmets covered in velvet strips, feathers, and blades of grass. Knee-high black waterproof heels cover the legs, while all the lightness of a tunic dress stands out against the dark wall of the Fondazione Prada. The juxtaposition of the general's hat with the bows delicately confuses the audience: are they spies, but are they in civilian clothes or uniforms?

In this new collection, all of Miuccia Prada's great masterpieces are hidden: accessories in the most unusual colors that give surprising accents to technical fabrics, necklines, and slits that don't reveal too many inches of skin but still manage to bring sensuality to the look, the modernisation of past silhouettes, with references to the mermaid shapes of ladies' suits almost a hundred years ago. There are traces of 90s Prada in aubergine purple, pistachio green, and thin azure belts, 80s in the composure of wide shoulders, 2000s in the eccentricity of shapes and light touches of ridicule. Part of the show features gray suits that reveal silk linings on the back like tissue paper, while others include trench coats and long coats worn off the shoulder with matching winter gloves, and sweaters with large boat necklines held together by a bedazzled bow. Among the references to the past stand out, beyond the rigid lines of the 50s suits cut in half, also fur inserts on collars, lace petticoats, but above all, maid-style shirts and aprons, with large gray bows at the sacrum.

The true chef d'oeuvre of the collection is the transparent silk dresses, a revisitation of one of the characteristic silhouettes of the Prada line to which a romantic detail has been added this season, embossed floral details that build soft spots all around the looks. Beyond the irony of the hats, which continue to attract the audience's attention throughout the show, new accessories emerge, from barely perceptible frame glasses with thick lenses to caramel-toned gradient bags, from belts used to support the bags to thick brown leather goods, so soft they seem to be covered in a veil of cocoa powder. In this show, Prada paid homage to historical knowledge but also perfectly encapsulated all the merits that Italian fashion owes to the genius of Miuccia Prada and co-designer Raf Simons. Storytelling, color, unusualness, and uninhibited female self-expression. But above all, the clothes.