In the last few months quite a few designers have expressed their concerns about environmental issues and the impact of the fashion industry on our planet, with companies trying to find new ways to be more sustainable. During London Fashion Week, while the fashion world seemed busy taking part in a ball on the Brexit Titanic, there was the Extinction Rebellion protest group that tried to disrupt the runways.
In Milan things were a bit quieter as there were no real protests, but Miuccia Prada expressed her concerns about our planet on her S/S 20 runway (that very aptly took place two days before Friday's global climate strike that will see millions of people all over the world marching for action).
Caught up between the excesses of the fashion industry and its thirst for something new every few months, and critics suggesting fashion should stop producing more garments and encouraging people to stop consuming, Prada wondered how fashion can sustain itself if people stop buying things.
Her answer was simple - stripping things down and providing key garments inspired by timelessness rather than trends. Easily recognisable prints such as flames, Frankenstein monsters and comic book illustrations or accessories like the super fashionable padded headbands, were left behind in favour of a minimalist approach.
Leaving behind also convoluted conceptual meanings and ideas, Prada opted for a simple approach to allow her fans and consumers to focus on details and style.
The runway kicked off with model Freja Beha Erichsen in ribbed grey top and thin white mid-calf skirt and, as the show progressed, there were hints at the '20s, the '70s and the '90s. Plain dresses and tailored jackets were juxtaposed to versatile leather skirts in black or lilac with a sequinned palm motif that was replicated on light dresses as a print and in its beaded variation on coats and leather tops.
Nature was evoked with the botanical motifs, at times appliqued on languid diva dresses (that wouldn't have looked out of place on Great Garbo in a film with an Art Deco set...) and in the necklaces made with large turbo petholatus, or tapestry turban (a name that definitely fits the world of fashion...) shells (Prada has been into shell necklaces for a while now, but the ones for the S/S 20 collection look extravagant and grand compared to necklaces from the A/W 17 runways) and in the large leather earrings representing marine creatures such as colourful crabs. These pieces created constrasts with the more minimalist ones.
The botanical embroideries called to mind pictures from Karl Blossfeldt's volume "Art Forms in Plants" (1928) or Walter Gropius' damasked tapestries, while the graphic motifs, stripes and intricate geometric elements (that went well with the tiled geometric floor) of intarsia knits and ugly prints may have an arty derivation (like the intrecciato leather sandals).
Some of these motifs and prints called indeed to mind the drawings by Varvara Stepanova and Alexander Rodchenko for the costumes for "Death of Tarelkin" or Léon Jallot's 1928 interior design projects, even though the main connection the runway had with interior design was the one with the palette (comprising orange, gold and pastels) from the films of Wes Anderson (who has a show opening tomorrow at the Fondazione Prada and who was sitting in the front row).
There was a final message in the juxtapositions of textures and materials (velvet and leather; sequins and straw; while the cloche hats seemed made from collaged scraps of luxury materials): know your style, to paraphrase the ancient Greek aphorism, and assemble your own wardrobe, mixing and matching, and remembering that you should rule fashion rather than being dominated by it (a difficult statement to make, especially when most people going to runways have turned into advertising boards for fashion designers/companies).
Miuccia Prada may not have found a way yet to reduce pollution, but in May the company annnounced it would go fur-free starting with this collection and last month Prada joined other prominent fashion houses and brands in the Fashion Pact, a document pledging to work together to reduce the negative impacts by the fashion industry on the environment.
So will it be possible for fashion houses to save the planet without going bankrupt and without stopping producing their collections? The dilemma remains, but creating more compact collections focused on style rather than trends may be one of the solutions.
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