PRADA
review by MAREK BARTEK
Christmas arrived early this season — more particularly on the first day of Milan Fashion Week, with Prada marking the official start of the fashion shenanigans in the city. The venue at Fondazione Prada’s Deposito remained unchanged from the brand's menswear outing in June. It might be three months later, yet here I am still wondering how many guests tripped over those damn transparent benches.
For Spring/Summer 2027 womenswear, Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons stripped their proposition back to a single garment. They describe the skirt as an obsession, an object through which endless ideas can be projected — and across 64 looks, the designers did exactly that. With no trousers in sight, we were served skirts on skirts on skirts. They were wrapped, pleated, crystal-covered, sheer, technical, floral, distressed, structured and softened, turning from a garment into a canvas on which Ms Prada and Mr Simons continued their ongoing, loving conversation.
There are said to be five stages of love: falling in love, becoming a couple, disillusionment, creating real and lasting love, and using the power of two together. Watching the collection unfold felt strangely like observing a long relationship. Not necessarily in a chronological sense per se, but in the way that every stage of love seemed to exist simultaneously.
Oversized leather biker jackets thrown over tiny patterned skirts, distressed knitwear, exposed bra tops, technical fabrics and acid flashes of colour were one-hundred-percent Raf Simons-coded, carrying his unmistakable fascination with youth, grunge and subculture. Others belonged entirely to Miuccia Prada: delicate pleated skirts, retro floral prints reminiscent of vintage aprons, crystal embroidery, light knits and bows. Ms Prada will forever be a girly girl at heart who loves all things shiny. Sometimes these two worlds alternated, sometimes they fully dissolved into one another.
After all, the Prada woman is anything but simple. She can be intense and playful, intellectual and yet sexy. One moment she resembles a woman stepping out of a corporate boardroom in a sober grey skirt; the next she is wearing little more than a black bra beneath an explosion of crystal flowers. Rather than presenting opposing archetypes, Prada insists they are the same woman. Complex, contradictory and impossible to reduce to a single identity.
Industrial velcro fastenings on skirts became decorative, embellished with crystals without ever losing its practical purpose. Cotton masqueraded as leather, pleats were engineered from technical fabrics, while sheer layers concealed ribboned skirts in a very delicate yet exposing manner. A sharply tailored leather jacket, cinched neatly at the waist by a matching skirt, was paired with delicate baby pink sandals. Bra tops appeared throughout the collection in countless variations, often styled with proper office skirts, creating that uniquely Prada ugly-chic aesthetic we've come to love.
As the collection progressed, so did its emotional intensity. The restrained opening gradually loosened into richer colours, embellished florals, jewel-encrusted lace skirts, vibrant greens, saturated pinks and translucent pleats. There was even something of an 80’s Miami Vice aesthetic, though it was firmly pushed into the Pradaverse, filtering familiar retro references through Prada's unmistakably intellectual lens.
The soundtrack (very consciously) echoed that emotional arc, too. Malcolm McLaren's Madama Butterfly opened the show with operatic longing before colliding with the unapologetic Lords of Acid. I’d pay good money to see Ms Prada and Mr Simons vibing backstage to the lyrics: “Darling come here, fuck me up the...” Romanticism gave way to lust, chaos and humour before Timi Yuro's Hurt closed the show. It was messy, emotional, sentimental, and strangely beautiful — much like love itself.
Six years into their partnership, Ms Prada and Mr Simons no longer appear to be negotiating space. They have reached a moment where each designer's handwriting remains immediately recognisable whenever they choose to foreground it, but when those signatures overlap, they produce something neither could have achieved alone.
Sure, the collection may have been an exploration of the skirt, but it ultimately became a portrait of the Prada woman in all her contradictions, and a reminder that great creative partnerships, much like lasting relationships, are built not by erasing each other’s differences, but by allowing them to coexist. Fashion's favourite parental duo has done it again.
DIESEL
review by DEBORAH DRENOFCI
all images courtesy of DIESEL
Saying goodbye is always hard. However, if you give a good kiss, smudge your red lipstick real good and wear minuscule bum-baring shorts, a goodbye becomes less difficult and much sexier. This is exactly what Glenn Martens presented for his last Diesel show before he moves on to a new chapter. The mood was set by a tense remix of Donna Summer's Love to Love You Baby. A sweaty, provocative energy hung in the air, and a red-lit venue turned into a playground of urban edge and rockstar swagger. Not to mention the models kissing in the crowd, a peculiar way to elicit some offhand eroticism, which in turn created a noticeable contrast in the show: loud, overstimulating, yet pretty sober.
The collection opened quietly, almost restrained — but it worked — with a more grounded colour palette: structured outerwear, washed leather, knitwear whose V-necks and hems frayed like falling leaves, layered over stripes and a charcoal-grey zip-up turtleneck worn as a mini dress.
Stopping to observe all 75 looks, it seems as if Martens sat down with his past collections and invited them to one last party, honouring the immaculate spectrum of Diesel codes. The glazed denim, lasered to look like leather, recalls similar pieces from his SS26 show, the one staged inside glass eggs across Milan. But this collection brought forward some very extravagant cuts: floral garlands dripping from skirts and strap dresses, cut-outs running up the legs, and faded checked shirts layered under short denim jackets, with pleated organza peeking out at the waist and cuffs.
Glenn Martens threw a pretty cool goodbye party, and he will be remembered for the innovative mindset he brought to Diesel. Now we are left wondering about the future of the house, and who will dare to follow such a sweaty act.
J.SALINAS
review by DEBORAH DRENOFCI
J.Salinas' SS27 collection was colourful magic. More than intricate, crochet tailoring, the collection was a love letter to Salinas' Peruvian roots. El Retablo, an interesting, almost mystical-sounding name for a collection, has different meanings in different cultures. In the Andes, it refers to a box inside of which life resides: historical events, celebrations, family, generational skills and religious devotion. Salinas thus used not only creativity but a lot of memory and compassion for his home to deliver El Retablo on the runway. Or perhaps each of the looks was its own retablo.
The colours were bold. A pop of red, shades of yellow, aquamarine, mint, royal blue. What made everything even more immaculate were the combinations of it all. A big royal blue bag meets aquamarine, a yellow bra shirt and a red puffy necklace. A red ruffled dress is decorated with hanging blue ribbons, while a bag in a slightly different shade of blue makes everything more elegant.
The details on each garment were spectacular. The hand-stitching was visible, and it was exactly that which made everything more interesting. Look closely and the crochet becomes sculpture: rows of puffy rolls stacked around the hips, scalloped layers overlapping like petals, strands of tiny crochet discs falling from the hem like rain. Some skirts were unlike anything else on the runway, with patterns and shapes that seemed to change with every step. Then came the hats, some small and neat, others so big they framed the whole body. And the shoes, wrapped in ruffles and fringe, looking like tiny characters with a personality of their own.
The show ended gracefully, with Salinas welcoming his Peruvian craftswomen, dressed in traditional clothing, to take a bow with him. After all, it is the magic of their hands that El Retablo preserves.