PRADA’S CONTINUOUS REDEFINITION OF BEAUTY
editor MAREK BARTEK
By now I know that when it comes to Prada, you always need to look twice. Not only to admire a silhouette or a colour but a deeper idea behind it because — even if it doesn’t seem like it — at Prada, everything is intentional. Sometimes it’s a study of beauty; other times, of control, or chaos, or the strange harmony between both. What’s constant, though, is that moment of hesitation, that pause when you look at something and think: wait, is this beautiful? And then you realise, of course it is, it’s Prada.
As Fall/Winter 2025 fits the stores, that tension takes very real, tangible shape in a single grey Shetland wool dress. What makes this dress so magnetic is what’s underneath its apparent simplicity — it’s built through hours of testing, cutting, pressing, layering. The fabric’s “savage finish” leaves a subtle roughness, a human imprint that refuses the idea of flawlessness. In a world obsessed with polish, Prada gives us something that breathes.
On paper, it’s a 1950s hourglass: contoured bust, cinched waist, softened hips. But look closer and the neatness frays. Literally. Darts and pleats form a central spine; each pleat hides a double insert in a contrasting tone, raw-edged and caught with zig-zag stitches. The crests are cut and combed by hand, then “scratched” with an abrasive brush for a tactile, imperfect surface. The heat of the press sets a permanent recall into the fabric before the hips are re-rounded and the pleats’ movement fixed. Even the bow at the front — tied from the same two-tone fabric as the hidden inserts — feels slightly off, like an afterthought that somehow makes everything make sense. It’s a classic Prada trick: one detail away from wrong, and therefore completely right.
Miuccia Prada’s fascination with what she once called “the elegant side of the ugly” reshaped how we see luxury. Optical illusion, in the Prada sense, isn’t just visual. It’s psychological. She made us crave friction, made us question why we find certain things appealing. Prada taught us that taste isn’t about prettiness. It’s about tension, thought, and emotion. It’s about what happens when a garment feels slightly off and therefore entirely alive.
But to achieve the exact effect, the process goes far beyond ideation. Prada’s obsession with craftsmanship allows the house to treat the pattern-making, tailoring, or pressing, like acts of intention, not just craft. Even the final press leaves a “memory” in the fabric, like the garment itself remembers its making. It’s industrial, emotional, and deeply human all at once.
Prada’s genius lies in making contradictions feel seductive. The raw and the refined. The feminine and the mechanical. The bow that shouldn’t belong, but does. The dress becomes a mirror of the whole house: rigorous, cerebral, yet deeply sensual. Because at the end of the day, Prada is a state of mind. It means something crafted to make you look twice, to think twice, to feel that small, exhilarating discomfort that comes right before beauty clicks into place. It’s that kind of beauty only Prada can make us believe in.