Prada makes fur harnesses and thin scarves masculine

http://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2014/jan/13/milan-fashion-week-prada-men

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Prada's Sunday evening show at Milan's menswear fashion week was once again a season game-changer. If other brands in Milan have played up their 90s heritage, Miuccia Prada was typically contrary – her inspiration was the culture and cinema of Europe in the late 70s and early 80s.

This theme was not immediately obvious from the clothes. Tailoring dominated here, and came tieless with loose-fitting trousers and blazers or light three-quarter-length coats in colours ranging from a bright purple to fire engine red and faded denim blue. Most models wore skinny scarves or ties thrown around their necks. Some had a kind of fur straitjacket cum life preserver harness over their clothes. The show also – following on from last time – included a few womenswear looks. These included leather knee-length dresses, feather boas and shoulder bags slung over fur-trimmed coats.

Each season, the Milan venue for Prada's show is transformed to reflect the collection about to be shown. This time, guests walked into an HQ that had carpeted floors and ceiling, flanked by scaffolding of corrugated steel. It looked like the sound stage of a film set.

Inside, the theme continued. There were spotlights and cameras on the catwalk. Editors sat in hollows in the catwalk like well-dressed members of an orchestra. One of the pits contained musicians, who played tunes straight out of a film score. These were interspersed with hard rock for a varied soundtrack.

Backstage after the show, Prada – who was dressed in an acid yellow skirt and aubergine sweater – joked that she used the women "as accessories. I wanted them to say what I wanted to with the menswear". The period in focus came through more explicitly in these pieces, although Prada's conceit that "even if it was casual, there was a kind of elegance too" was true of the men's collection. The early 80s in Europe was a world where a kind of rakish, bohemian man – in the tradition of Serge Gainsbourg, perhaps – might well throw a skinny scarf over a mismatched suit in a bid to channel arty chic.

This is territory that Prada has explored before. In the women's collection for autumn 2013, a cinematic heroine – albeit one from the 60s – was the muse, and the industrial set hacked back to the concrete for the spring/summer 2011 menswear show. It was certainly a turnaround, though, from the flowers and 50s collection flanked by palm trees last seen in this space.

"The excuse was a theatre in the 80s," said Prada. "We wanted to change the set from something opulent to something industrial."

In a sense, finding out what Prada's collections mean clouds the point. Each season, she rewrites what came before but manages to make clothes that always have that Prada DNA: "The mixed colours were just the next step in fashion, and we used volpeta – a kind of cheap fox that is the only fur that can be masculine." The Prada man – who contributes to strong sales figures, up 14.6% in the first half of 2013 – returns each season to a brand that combines experimentation with, ultimately, wearable clothes. Even he may struggle with those fur harnesses, though.

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