146 |Harper’s BAZAAR|September 2014IMAGES: COURTESY PRADAINTERVIEW
The
iuccia, who has on a charcoal top and skirt with a hula fringe of metal chain
at the neck and a taupe headband framing her face, began work on her
spring men’s collection the day before. It will be shown in a month’s time
and will include a few women’s looks as a tease for September. She says the
theme will be classics – “whatever that means” – then immediately offers
that it could wind up “the subtitle” of the show. “Usually when I say
‘classic,’” she says with a brisk laugh, “it means I have no ideas.” (However
she felt a month later, insiders sensed from her middle-of-the-road togs
“a conservative turn.” Even the cocktail food was picked for useful clues:
it was “fi ercely untrendy.”) One wonders how much insiders actually know
about Miuccia’s methods. “It’s really a drama,” she says of the number of times she can change her
mind or add something before a show, often in the fi nal week or two. “This is not very nice
maybe, but all of the decisions are because we are late. And mainly it’s me. If I can postpone and
postpone...” She shrugs. “Sometimes you need unconsciously to let your mind consider an idea.”
For the women’s show in September, she and design director Fabio Zambernardi will have their
initial meeting in July so, as he says, they can get an idea down before the August holiday. That
leaves the design team three weeks to get the show together. (Miu Miu is essentially done in 12
days.) Fabio, who started at Prada in 1989 – a year after Miuccia fi rst showed – believes that the
intense process helps her to be precise but, maybe more, to rely on her instincts. Still, he admits,
“after all these conversations, the day before the show she’ll say, ‘Oh, it’s so beautiful, I’m so happy,
but what’s it all about?’” He laughs. “Almost like a child asking, ‘How did we get to this point?’
She needs a recap of her thoughts. Me too!” Such “drama” is possible because of the Prada
machine – the industrial side
of the Dhs18.4-billion-a-year
company run by her husband,
which has recently seen the
opening of a Prada store in
Centria Mall, Saudi Arabia,
and a Miu Miu boutique
in the UAE’s Mall of
the Emirates. This season
a further fi ve Prada and Miu
Miu stores are set to open
across Saudi. For Miuccia,
the machine just works. “You
have to consume one idea so
that the next idea comes,” she
says. The biggest challenge for
her right now is how to throw
out relevant ideas to a global
audience in a way that is also
clear, “The simplifi cation is a nightmare! It’s everywhere. In politics.” At a basic level, global
relevance in this part of the world means the Prada men’s Arabic sandals produced for the GCC
as well as made-to-order crocodile and crystal bags galore. Still, she says, “I don’t want to address
myself to a small, elite group. This is too easy.” She’s gratifi ed that so many young people she
meets are widely informed. “They know so much about everything, the references,” she says,
adding with a chuckle, “I often have the feeling that young people are more free than those with
the complex to be modern. And what does it mean, modern?” She sighs. But instead of continuing
in that vein, she says, “There is a key point that people keep underestimating about me: I am
a very trendy person! I mean, my job is more complicated, but basically I am interested in what’s
next. Since I was 16, I wanted to be the fi rst one. I wanted to be different.” What makes a Prada
show different has a lot to do with Miuccia’s ability to create mood. Michael Rock, whose fi rm
makes the wallpaper and murals she uses and who is heavily involved in exhibitions, like the
recent Pradasphere, at Harrods in London, says she really grasps the affective aspect of fashion.
That is, the impression a style (or a show) can leave. This indirect method of conveying an idea
also keeps her from being overly intellectual about it, Michael says. For instance, the autumn/
winter 2013 show, with the tweed dresses in ’60s cocktail cuts worn over sweaters, with high heels
and the models’ hair in damp clumps as if from rain or a night of sex. The audience was in a tizzy
over its glamour. Pure affect. Or take the controversial A/W 2010 show featuring the bosomy
models Doutzen Kroes and Lara Stone and a lot of dowdy dresses covered in pastry frills. Readers
of one blog went wild, saying it evoked Madame Tito, fond memories of their mothers and even
“a post-socialist aesthetic of warmth and human pace.” Still... pure affect.M
“SINCE I WAS 16 ,
I WANTED TO BE
THE FIRST ONE.
I WANTED TO BE
DI FFE R E NT ”
➤
Prada A/W14