A lot can be said about the way one adorns themselves during New York Fashion Week. And more often than not, it feels like everyone is getting dressed with the hopes of being photographed. People are peacocking for the cameras and suddenly, the clothing is more important than the person wearing them. Well, Miuccia Prada has had enough. Her spring 2020 offering is a reminder that personal style is supposed to be personal.
Vogue notes that “her starting point for this collection was that ‘the person should be more important than the clothes,’ and further, that ‘personal style is more important than clothes.’” The Fondacione in the Prada Complex set the scene for the 51-look collection with its rainbow-hued floor titles and columns covered in gold foil.
“The feeling at the moment is about ‘too much,’ too much of everything, too much,” Prada told WWD. “There’s also a call not to produce, not to consume. In this atmosphere I tried to, firstly, to do less, even though I’m not sure I was able to because when you do fashion, fashion slips through your hands.” Further, she acknowledged the internal conflict of creating a collection while being conscious of the waste. “I’ve never had as many leftovers as this season…there’s a lot of stuff we didn’t use. I certainly worked by subtraction, struggling to do so, also, because you get carried away with fashion. A dress, a pair of shoes only, you panic when it’s too little.”
What made it down the runway was a beautiful mashup of tailored jackets, dresses made of cheese cloths, pleated and pencil skirts, trousers with a hint of flare, and silk cocktail dresses worn with sturdy pumps and macramé handbags. Finally, getting dressed is fun again.