Prada’s answer to stagnating sales was unveiled
on Thursday with a handbag-heavy Fall-Winter collection that the company’s
executives hopes will spark a revival in the fashion heavyweight’s flagging
fortunes.
Miuccia Prada’s latest offering had a post-War feel about it with sailor or
nurse-style white caps abounding alongside cape-shaped coats and pencil
skirts
designed to emphasise the slender waists of more austere times.
Leather coats and jackets, which came with fur trimmings, tweed overcoats,
argyle-patterned tights and elbow-touching woolly gloves also harked back
to a
less centrally-heated era.
Prada could do with this collection being a major hit after two consecutive
years of stagnating sales and no sign of an end to the slowdown in China
that
is hitting it particularly hard.
Against that backdrop, it was perhaps significant that almost every model
who strutted down the catwalk at Prada’s Milan HQ Thursday was carrying, in
a
variety of ways, one of the company’s pricey handbags, the accessory which
more than any other has powered its growth over the years.
And in another telling sign of the times, two of those bags are to be made
available to buy from Friday rather than being held back from release when
the
Fall/Winter collection goes on sale in four months time.
The move may seem insignificant to the wider world but it is being hailed
as big news by fashion insiders who have billed it as the company’s first
tentative dip into “see now, buy now”.
The trend has already been embraced by Burberry and Tom Ford. If it takes
off, it is seen as having the potential to completely transform the way
upmarket designer clothes are produced and marketed.
Initial reaction to the Prada show was generally positive with Women’s Wear
Daily calling it “spectacular and provocative.” But there was also a whiff
of faint praise about some reviews, which sometimes can amount to coded
criticism in the fashion world.
The Daily Telegraph said the collection was “beautiful in many parts”
while
its British rival The Guardian noted that “compelling thought it is, this
Prada message is not new.”
Elsewhere on day two of Milan fashion week, Karl Lagerfeld produced a very
fluid, wavy collection for Fendi with star American model and TV star
Kendall
Jenner providing a touch of celebrity glamour.
Thigh-high boots in an array of colours provided the eye-catching highlight
and even they had a ruffled look about them. Furs abounded, as so often
with Fendi. But here they were jazzed up with vibrant dashes of colour. The
collection also drew inspiration from Japan, generally in its fluidity and
particularly in the form of the flowers on a baby doll dress that were
modelled on an 18th-century Japanese wallpaper print.
But the nod to Japan which delighted Fendi fans the most was the presence
of Piro-chan and her male counterpart Bug-kun — mascots modelled on the
furry
handbag charms which have become cult items in Japan, a key market for the
Rome-based house.
Costume National designer Ennio Capasa meanwhile celebrated 30 years with
the brand with a collection that featured much asymmetry and had a very
deconstructed feel in keeping with two of the women who inspired it:
Icelandic
singer Bjork and Yoko Ono.
And Massimo Giorgetti’s reinvention of the Emilio Pucci house style
continued with another sporty collection for the LVMH-owned group. Zipped
knitwear and leggings that could have passed for ski pants set the tone.
(Angus Mackinnon, AFP)
Photos: AFP