Milan Fashion Week closed down on a somber note: while Chinese representatives of the industry, from editors to buyers and designers, didn't travel to the A/W 20 shows this season after the Coronavirus alert, the sudden Covid-19 outbreaks in Lombardy ended up paralysing the north of Italy.
Yet, the fashion press got some good news on Sunday when, at a private press conference at Prada headquarters, it was revealed that Belgian designer Raf Simons was joining Miuccia Prada as co-creative director.
The contract will be effective from the begining of April and, Miuccia Prada announced, it has no specific termination, it should "in theory" last forever. But Miuccia Prada is definitely not planning to retire, and Simons will be working with her, sharing "equal responsibilities for creative input and decision making."
The first collection (S/S 21) will be unveiled in September, and Simons will still be working on his eponymous label, dividing himself between Antwerp and Milan.
In a way the announcement wasn't a surprise as there had been rumours for quite a while about a possible collaboration between Prada and Raf Simons, but also about Prada looking for a buyer, possibly a huge conglomerate à la LVMH. At the moment, though, Miuccia Prada and her husband Patrizio Bertelli, owners of 80% of the group, do not seem interested in selling.
Prada and Simons's collaboration is professional but it is also based on a friendship that has united the designers since the Prada Group hired Simons as creative director of Jil Sander in 2005. Prada sold it to a London private equity firm in 2006, but Simons worked there for seven year.
Simons then worked as creative director of Christian Dior in Paris from 2012 to 2015, and as Chief Creative Officer at Calvin Klein, from 2016 to 2018. Simons stated that Bertelli approached him after he exited Calvin Klein, so this collaboration has been in the air for a few years now.
For Prada it seems to be an opportunity to renew itself a bit: the Italian fashion house usually gets rave reviews after its runway shows, but things haven't been so rosy. Sales started going down around 2015 and the company, which is listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange, went through a restructuring plan in the last few years that also saw the label renovating shops and focusing on innovative digital strategies and investments. The Prada Group reported net revenues of €1.57 billion in the first half of 2019, though Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization (EBITDA) went up, reaching €491 million.
But at the press conference Prada and Simons didn't talk about revenues, but about creativity: the duo decided to collaborate together as they strongly believe that they can bring emotion and a strong creative vision to a fashion scene that, according to Simons, nowadays produces profitable brands without genuinely creative people heading them.
In 2015, in an interview with Cathy Horyn, Simons mentioned the need to find "incubation time for ideas", and at Prada he will certainly manage to find not maybe the time for ideas, but the spaces for excursions into art, architecture, culture, films and politics. He shares indeed with Miuccia Prada some great passions, and the Italian company regularly organises exhibitions at the Fondazione and Osservatorio, engaging with artists, directors, thinkers and with Miuccia's favourite architect, Rem Koolhaas and his AMO/OMA practice.
So Prada-land will probably be a great space for Simons to develop his arty projects and collaborations like the ones with his friend Sterling Ruby. Besides, Simons also designs textiles for the Danish manufacturer of interior design fabrics Kvadrat and Miuccia Prada is interested in the fashion/interior design connection, something that may result in some Prada/Simons home products.
Last but not least, the idea of an innovative duo of super designers (it is worth remembering that also Dries Van Noten and Christian Lacroix formed a super duo of designers for the former's S/S 20 collection, but that was a one off project) is maybe not that new in Italy: the country produced in the past supergroups of architects and interior designers (that at times collaborated with fashion designers), from Superstudio to UFO and Gruppo 9999, from Gruppo Strumm to Studio Alchimia and Memphis Milano. Groups of radical creative minds brought innovation on the design scene in Italy between the '70s and the '80s and the intent behind Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons' collaboration is probably the same. After all, the press release announcing the collaboration used the magic word, "radical", stating "this radical creative dialogue (...) is a reiteration of the philosophies of both Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons. It is perfectly in tune with each designer's individual history of reinvention, provocation, brave exploration and the power of ideas - now, brought together."
Will they succeed in this new mission and will co-creative directors be the next fashion fad? Difficult to say in the modern and unstable fashion scene, after all Simons arrival at Clavin Klein was met with great excitement, but things didn't work out as planned. Yet, while it is too early to guess what Prada and Simons' first collection will look like, you can bet the duo will launch some kind of alternative project during Milan Design Week (from 21st to 26th April). Who knows, from now on impenitent fashionistas and fans of the two designers may have to start saving money not just for their clothes and accessories, but for some luxury home decor pieces as well.
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