In-between worlds and dimensions. Maybe there are too many of them in our lives: we access them via our smartphones or computers, we reach out to other realities to interact, chat and communicate with people who may be living, working or even playing a videogame in another part of the world.
At times some of us feel trapped between the real life we inhabit with our bodies and the digital and virtual world we live in when we access our Facebook, Instagram or Twitter accounts, and we become unable to reconcile the two dimensions. Surprisingly enough, Miuccia Prada is among them. This dichotomy was indeed the main inspiration for her menswear S/S 18 collection.
Broadcast live on Prada.com, and for the first time on InstagramLive, just to strengthen the idea of the "real Vs virtual" dichotomy, the collection was supposed to be a way to link the digital world to the real one not using social networks, as most of us do, but employing a different medium – comic strips.
Miuccia admitted she never liked comics, but for this collection she felt the power of the graphic novels, becoming obsessed by the fact that they are hand-drawn and therefore they tell a story about humanity.
Her obsession was first and foremost injected in and around the runway space – the venue in Via Fogazzaro was indeed transformed into a gigantic comic strip.
Roy Lichtenstein-like comic frames were blown up to trap the guests in an architecturally precise and determined space that was metaphorically used to tell a story (the new collection) within a story (the comic book tale).
Fragments of black and white comic strips covered all sorts of surfaces, from the floors and walls to the ceiling.
The artwork was commissioned to James Jean (who worked on different Prada collections, including the recent Resort show) and to Belgian artist Ollie Schrauwen, who were instructed to emphasise the human aspect rather than the superhero one.
Yet the artists seemed to create a sort of futuristic dystopia with robot laser-eyed space monkeys, abandoned cityscapes, suburban skies, a random giant ant borrowed from a '50s sci-fi story, and alienated characters wearing VR headsets.
The comic strips and illustrations were then replicated on two-tone shirts and garage mechanic suits/pilot-style onesies, but the collection also featured blousons, bowling style knits, and plain shirts with sleeves pulled and anchored with the Prada Velcro tabs.
Trousers were either wide-legged and pulled high or narrow and tapered at the ankle, where they were secured with another velcro tab.
The Summer looks were rebalanced by heavy coats in flannel and herringbone that also played with another dichotomy: light nylon sportswear matched with velcro strap trainers represented a sort of futuristic uniform; the herringbone designs pointed instead at an artisanal and more traditional look. Towards the end Miuccia also included beige, pink, and olive suits that called to mind the look of the Stray Cats (but the bands of contrasting colours inside the trouser legs pointed back at Prada's S/S 13 menswear collection).
The accessory offer featured fanny packs worn around the back, flight bags, thin belts, Velcro-strapped shoes, two-tone sandals matched with knee socks and sneakers.
In a way, there wasn't much to write about this collection, and, if you actually stopped and looked at things from a fashion history perspective, you had the impression of having already seen everything: strip the jumpsuits of their comic prints and dystopian illustrations, look at the designs matched with monastic leather sandals (albeit in bright colours) and you will see the classic jumpsuit launched by Italian painter and sculptor Ernesto Michahelles, better known as Thayaht, and called "tuta".
The artist and designer favoured wearing the T-shaped overalls with a belted waist with basic leather sandals that Miuccia Prada seemed to echo in her own footwear.
At times the overalls also evoked uniforms and called to mind the attire of bands à la Devo, white the comic strip set populated by real models must have conjured up in the mind of many the set of A-Ha's '80s classic hit "Take On Me". All these overlapping references pointed therefore once again at a will to remix the past, reducing the initial dichotomy of "real Vs virtual" to a simple and at times boring and borrowed narrative.
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