Miuccia Prada won’t be flying solo much longer. The designer just debuted her last collection as Prada‘s sole creative director via a virtual showcase on YouTube today. Starting in September, designer Raf Simmons will join her at the helm.
For her last hurrah, Prada went digital due to the current coronavirus crisis and debuted her spring ’21 line as a short film titled, “The Show That Never Happened.” Instead of models walking down a runway, Prada replaced the singular statement with the perspectives of many, in multiple views, for an 11-minute video.
In it, five chapters feature the interpretations of the clothing through artists Terence Nance, Joanna Piotrowska, Martine Syms, Juergen Teller and Willy Vanderperre. Each proposed a film capturing a facet of the Prada collection.
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“I think that our job as fashion designers is to create clothes for people, that is the honesty of it. That is really the value of our job — to create beautiful, intelligent clothes. This season, we focused on that idea: it is about clothes, about giving value to pieces,” Prada told WWD. “The clothes are — but with the concept of simplicity as an antidote to useless complication. This is a moment that requires some seriousness, a moment to think and to reflect on things. What do we do, what is fashion for, what are we here for? What can fashion contribute, to a community?”
The news of Simons joining Prada as co-creative director came in February during a press conference at Prada headquarters on the last day of Milan Fashion Week. Simons is to work in partnership with Miuccia Prada “with equal responsibilities for creative input and decision making,” the company said at the time.
The announcement also underlines the strong complicity between Simons and the Prada Group, which had originally tapped Simons to become creative director of Jil Sander in 2005. Prada said she felt a need to reinforce the creativity in her company, adding, “We like each other, we respect each other. I was sometimes criticized for not doing collaborations, so now I am doing one.”
Prada presented her first ready-to-wear collection in 1989.
Watch the spring ’21 show here:
