I'd like to know what you think about Prada's Fall 2010 menswear collection. Miuccia Prada said that her intention in designing the collection was "to work on...banality, on something generic." This seems like a pretty big departure from her usual design aesthetic and I thought you might be able to give me a little insight toward what she might have been trying to accomplish with that shift. It certainly does strike me as banal, but can that really make a successful collection?
First of all, I'd like to thank Kody for sending me a question I can really sink my teeth into.
Miuccia Prada ranks as one of the top fashion designers in the world. She's the designer that other top designers steal ideas from. She's so innovative and ahead of her time that her ideas don't actualize themselves in the public arena until years later. What she shows on the runway never fails to spark the imagination, and yet, Prada is also known for her minimalist designs. She's edgy and subversive, but also sleek and narrow. How someone can be both insanely creative and so self-contained is a mystery.
While it is true that her Fall 2010 Menswear collection was collectively banal, I'd like to talk about her Spring 2011 Menswear collection, as well because both collections fall prey to the descriptive "Banal." This does seem like a major departure from her usual design aesthetic - which begs the question, what does it all mean? For someone who banks on innovative design, describing your collection as banal (the antithesis of innovation) seems completely at odds with your proposed design aesthetic.
What Prada favors is turning preconceived notion on its head. If we're expecting fresh and exciting, and we're struck with something that's borderline uninspired, maybe that is a statement in and of itself. Let's look at her Spring 2011 Menswear collection:
Some of these designs are painful to look at. They're not flattering at all, and most of the models look like little boys playing dress up in Doctor Dad's scrubs. Most of the designs are minor adjustments on an overriding (and incredibly boring) theme. I can't imagine what it was like backstage. "Hurry, get him into the big, blue pants!" "Be more specific! They're nearly all big and blue." Okay, so it wasn't all heinous. I did like the three-button blazer:
It's hard to understand what's going on with her past two menswear collections, but we are talking about one of the smartest fashion minds of our time, so there must be something to it. So, what idea is she proposing here? Is she flaunting something obvious, or is this a clandestine inside joke?
The New York Times quotes Prada on the subject of her collection:
Yet, more than most designers today, Ms. Prada is interested in making dynamic connections, and at some point very soon people are going to become bored with heritage and stale attitudes about sophistication. “There are elite people everywhere, all more or less interested in the same things: art, culture,” she said. “They’re basically interested in ideas.” The notion, recently put forth by the luxury-goods executive François-Henri Pinault, that European houses can show Chinese consumers how to be sophisticated is ridiculous, Ms. Prada said, and quite possibly will only lead to banal products.
She is also not alarmed by the instantaneousness of things — by writers and bloggers spitting out iPhone images before a collection is even digested, a situation that led an art director here to remark, “They’re burning up the dream almost immediately.”
Ms. Prada isn’t concerned. “As a designer you have to decide what you’re interested in, and you also have to work harder,” she said. “I’m interested in a wide world. This is an extremely exciting moment. You have to face it and embrace it and like it.”
Is she racing China to the altar of banality as social commentary? Perhaps. Did she sacrifice an entire season's collection to do so? It's my argument that she did. She's approaching this unique problem of instantaneous design turnaround and the knock-off culture that's been created around it and addressed it in her own subtle way. I am convinced that she really loves this collection and that it had a point to her, and perhaps a portion of the point was, 'I don't care if you don't like it.' She created a fiercely unattractive menswear collection out of a blend of whimsy and fashion pedagoguery, and I think this comes across after careful inspection. Keep your hands off her fresh and cool designs, and maybe she'll grace us with the creativity we've grown love so much.
6 comments:
It is an odd collection, from what I've seen here. I also thought the models looked like they were playing dress up in over-sized scrubs.
One of my pet peeves as a critic (and I am a critic insofar as we are all ultimately critics) is when I see an artist produce something awful with either intentional irony or specifically to make a point. Of course, this is a simplistic critique, but if one produces stale art as a commentary on stale art, one has still ultimately produced stale art. My personal irritation comes when the artist tries to pass off the stale art as fresh when coupled with the assumption of ironic commentary.
So, is she trying to pass this off as a fashion line that is innovative because it is also commentary, or has she simply sacrificed her contribution to the season to make a point? It seems wasteful, but I think I would prefer the latter. From your post, it looks like that may be her intention.
Andrew,
I concur with your assessment. Ultimately, I will never know with certainty what she (or anyone else, for that matter) is intending with their creations. There are infinite perspectives, and only one that approximates her truth. I can't pretend to know it, and what I offer is merely my take on the the matter. For all I know, she could have seen her collection flounder in the public arena and made a statement to account for the banality by declaring it her Original Purpose All Along. Maybe she is making a statement (but still producing stale art).
"So, is she trying to pass this off as a fashion line that is innovative because it is also commentary..."
I don't think she is trying to pass it off as innovative at all, but rather, so not innovative as to become spectacle. Who really knows? I did my best.
Grace, thank you so much for such a well considered, in-depth answer. Looking at these (what I am now convinced are) "statement" collections in a vacuum is pretty meaningless; they really do have to be put into the context of the larger dialogues going on between designers if you want to extract any coherence. This is the kind of commentary we need a lot more of in the fashion world.
Wow, your strong opinions and views never seize to amaze me. :) I agree that the three button blazer is the nicest of the outfits depicted. I actually genuinely like the way the blazer and the way it is form fitting. However, the rest of the outfits are certainly....well, they remind me of golf gone bazaar? The jean-looking shirts utterly confuse me, and the pants with the belt make me thing they forgot to tuck in their belt or something. Maybe there is an alternative motive though!
Ha, I absolutely despise most of these pieces. The three button blazer is definitely the most wearable item of the collection. My boyfriend would laugh if someone wanted him to sport the oversized (what appears to be fancy scrubs) shirt and shorts. He already wears them on a daily basis and spicing them up for the runway is a crime. ;)
xo Lynzy
I remember once overhearing someone saying that a lot of times ramp fashion isn't fit enough even to be caught dead in. I think this quote pretty much sums up this Prada collection. What were they thinking? Or is it a sort of crazy social experiment to see if people are actually stupid enough to follow this Scrubs-inspired fashion and wear it blindfolded. It's good to read a refreshing post on a fashion blog instead of the usual look-pretty-collection-nice-colours fare.
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