Prada Gets Weird, Renounces Pants

Thank God for Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons. After expected and uneventful fashion weeks in New York and London, the mastermind duo behind Prada slapped the fashion world across the face with a show in Milan on Sept. 19 celebrating weirdness in its fullest, and also officially kissing pants goodbye.

There were so, so many ideas in this show, and after a few seasons of Prada delivering solid, more cohesive collections, this repository of oddities was so refreshing that it’s worth several rewatches to take everything in. In the first five looks alone, there’s a slip dress with its straps suspended in air as if caught in the wind, a pale yellow strapless gown worn with bug-eye sunglasses, and a sturdy leather shift dress embellished with toggles and circle keychains.

Where there weren’t straight-leg wool trousers, flimsy sheer dresses, and cheese-grater keyhole metallic skirts, there were barely any pants at all. The knit leggings in pink, grey, and purple will be “a key piece to look out for this season” according to Lauren Santo Domingo, founder of Moda Operandi and host of the Prada live viewing of the show that was hosted bright and early at the brand’s Soho store. And indeed, the embrace of either thermals as bottoms, or lady-like car coats worn without a bottom entirely, indicate we are headed to a natural no-pants conclusion. With the rise of hot pants both in real life and on catwalks, Miuccia Prada knows better than anyone that looking forward is the only way, as she designs in the “infinite present,” as Domingo smartly put it.

It’s not everyday that you can walk away from a show with several new outfit recipes that you hadn’t considered before. Consider the leopard-print collarless coat worn with a striped top, barely-there black briefs, and red-and-blue ballet-flat sneakers. Or maybe the kelly-green suede jacket worn with grey trousers tucked into white patent cowboy boots. And that’s not even getting fully into the extraterrestrial cut-out hats, archival shoes from past Prada seasons (how many Easter eggs can you count?), and 22nd-century sunglasses. But our main takeaway was the clever way that pants were absent in these looks, not in a “pick me” street-style way, but with conviction that you can wear your coat buttoned up with nothing underneath it.