Prada Recruits Five Creatives to Showcase SS21 Collection
Showcased by Terence Nance, Joanna Piotrowska, Martine Syms, Juergen Teller and Willy Vanderperre.
Kicking off this season’s Milan Fashion Week, Prada has taken the opportunity to break away from traditional formats and instead work with a number of leading creatives. With Spring/Summer 2021 shows around the world taking place digitally rather than physically, Prada believes “a singular statement is replaced by the perspectives of many.”
To achieve this, the Italian label has showcased its collection in five different chapters, with five films created by various artists and image makers. The creatives chosen for the SS21 project are Terence Nance, Joanna Piotrowska, Martine Syms, Juergen Teller and Willy Vanderperre, each of whom have focused on a different element of the collection and interpreted it in their own way. The inclusion of Vanderperre hinted at the next era for Prada, with his regular collaborator Raf Simons set to join the house as co-creative director.
The collection itself was delivered in more traditional runway show at the end of the presentation. Pieces came in a muted color palette of black, grey, white and beige, while some womenswear items featured more eye-catching prints. Menswear pieces came in a fitted silhouette, featuring technical fabrications of Prada nylon with traditional suiting As well as technical tailoring, the collection also saw workwear-influenced pieces constructed from leather, cotton and taffeta, elevating the items from their roots. Elsewhere, Prada Linea Rossa continued to showcase the label’s sportswear-inspired aesthetics.
The collection’s notes discussed the understated aesthetic, “A radicalism is found in purity – simplicity with a complexity, yet an antidote to useless complication in precision and directness. Contradiction is celebrated: in apparent fragility can be found strength, through rigour joy. A sense of lightness not only of physicality but of emotion – the dynamism of sportswear translates throughout, a sense of enjoyment, energy, fun. A reason for fashion.”
For more from this season’s digital fashion weeks, take a look at Fumito Ganryu’s lockdown-inspired collection.
