Flabbergast Prada Ready-To-Wear Collection...Fashionweekly..On Fow24news.com

It’s a common phenomenon at Miuccia Prada's shows, but one that never ceases to amaze..
after her show, masses of reporters from near and far clustered around the designer – phone recorders in hand – to get her sensational first words on what had just occurred on her runway. On the backdrop of the comic book motifs that covered the walls in her teatro on Via Fogazzarro, it looked like a scene from a classic Superman flick, the Metropolis press huddling around the caped crusader for a comment after he saved the world, again. Only, in fashion, Mrs Prada is the female superhero and her quest is just that — empowering other women one collection at the time. “You could say it was masculine but I don’t want to say that,” she reflected on the collection she’d just shown.

“Whenever men describe a strong woman they say that.”Notably, when she first talked about her newfound comic book fascination at her men’s show in June, Prada referred to it as wanting to do “something simply human-human stories." Applied to womenswear, the reference instantly took on a different - and perhaps more personal - meaning to the designer, who is acutely in touch with her political surroundings, and to whom the struggle is real. This wasn’t simply human, it was superhuman — it was female. The collection was about the heroines she’d observed in comic books from the past century, “from good ones to bad ones, the beautiful and not-so-beautiful,” she said. Prada fused decades and movements in a retro patchwork that reminded guests of different eras. Some said the Sixties, some the Eighties, but whether it was rockabilly, beatnik, Teddy Boy, or New Romantic, there was a distinct punch to Mrs Prada’s point.A bit,” she admitted. “In our condition as women I feel we should really stand combative.” She was of course referring to the reactionary political landscape and the women’s protest marches, which took place around President Trump’s inauguration early this year. The collection, Prada explained, had started out as all-white dresses, which were then adorned in the pink brocade, animal prints, studs, buttons and comic book motifs that came to define it. There were the heritage elements she didn’t want labelled as masculine – herringbone coats with leopard lapels, roomy blazers with rolled-up sleeves, broad-lapelled coats that looked like they’d been painted over – but they were easily overruled by insistent girliness in babydoll dresses, bustiers with bows, and big ole’ skirts. “Miuccia, Miuccia, Miuccia,” her models could be heard cheering as guests made their way backstage, and this superwoman’s message was clear: “Encouragement and strength. Particularly now.”