PARIS — Maybe the only person in fashion who can still create actual trends is Miuccia Prada, who continues to ride high from the ongoing viral success of her brand Miu Miu. Most fashion designers today (even, or especially, the really good ones) do things that won’t really trickle down to the rest of culture; a creative director is not a hemline dictator anymore. But Y2K style, miniskirts, crop tops, perverted prep, boat shoes, penny loafers — all these things you keep reading about “making a comeback” in trend reports or on social media got their start on Miuccia Prada’s runways over the past three years.
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Even a skeptic has to admit that Mrs. Prada (as the industry calls her) just keeps nailing it. Her Tuesday afternoon show, on the final day of Paris Fashion Week, came with a weird newspaper, covered in QR codes and fakey headlines (“Famous Philosopher Found in Athletic Attire”), by the artist Goshka Macuga. Even traditional sources of “reality,” Macuga’s paper suggested, lead us into needless tunnels of distracting information where we must dig for facts, a journey few people are willing to take.
But the clothes told a cogent story about the lives of women today. Lots of designers are trying to celebrate personal style and the culture of getting dressed (in a sort of old-fashioned, meticulously ostentatious Swans way), but who genuinely has time for that? Instead, Mrs. Prada’s clothes were like a mirror on how women want to experience pleasure and beauty in our everyday lives, even as we have to rush and find ourselves just making do. Dresses that buttoned up in the back were left undone (the wearer can’t reach them and her partner is either already at work or doesn’t exist); one was even open with little cutesy underwear exposed in the back, and a couple tight pedal pushers showed the models’ panty lines. These were pulled-together looks corrupted by the realities of a woman’s life: Even when you put on a neat little leather jacket and a ladylike skirt, your shirt is still going to inch out and your collar is going to get all mussed. Especially rich was Mrs. Prada’s continued use of domestic fabrics, like white cottons trimmed with eyelet that could be a tablecloth or bedsheets, then embroidered with really jazzy beadwork, as if to show the weird and sometimes awkward blend of interests that make up the life of today’s woman.
Mrs. Prada also revived a few op art prints from early 2000s collections, which echoed how women today might have a midafternoon daydream and think, “Wait, whatever happened to that thing I bought 20 years ago? That was pretty good.” But you realize it doesn’t quite fit or it just looks weird (because it’s two decades old), so you throw some decorative belts over it and hope that’s an outfit.
The stylist Lotta Volkova shared a few wonderful behind-the-scenes details on Instagram, such as manicures that were purposefully worn away — again, who has time to keep up the appearances of being a real lady? As Willem Dafoe closed the show — I guess because what gal doesn’t want a swarthy hunk stalking through her life from time to time? — I thought: If you want to know how women feel, look at the way they dress.
Another designer who usually captures an urgent spirit of the moment is the prodigious Demna, of Balenciaga. One of the great designers of his generation, he still talks a great game: Backstage he said: “Fashion needs to get messed up. It needs to get f---ed up, it needs to get thrown into places. ... It needs not to be based on fear.” But he seems to have lost his way with this wannabe-sexy collection of trompe l’oeil lingerie, belly-baring bombers and low-rise jeans, and leering lurch dresses.
The clothes felt empty and repetitive: sleazy in a merely provocative way instead of an intriguingly uncomfortable or out-there way. Demna said he looks to 25-year-olds for fresh ideas about how to get dressed today, but these clothes did not really say anything about the way young people desire sensuality or want to express sexuality. It was not up to the standards of his mind. He is too smart to be the bank teller offering lollipops to kiddies who get dragged in with their parents. His red-carpet dresses for stars such as Nicole Kidman and Isabelle Huppert are exquisite — a totally new way of looking at outrageous glamour — and his hit bag is a delicious satire of the Birkin. Why not stick your tongue out at quiet luxury, or carve out your own path against ugliness? A few years ago, people were reluctant to admit the world was ugly, and Demna was the only designer showing us this truth. Now we all know everything is ugly, and someone like Demna could show us a truly new, alternative view of beauty. He’s the only philosopher king in fashion brave and gritty enough to do it.
On a brighter note: Let’s say you want to get in the weeds of fashion — the Loewe, Prada, Comme des Garçons levels — but your budget isn’t exactly there and you don’t want to go the fast fashion route. You must pay attention to Kiko Kostadinov, the London-based brand whose womenswear is designed by sisters Laura and Deanna Fanning. There is nothing nostalgic about these clothes; in fact, they are two of the few designers who, rather than reviving old styles or moods, actually cut and design truly new garments. You might get lost in the process of figuring out how many ways to fasten their elegant trapeze-shaped car coat, or wrap that wired scarf around your neck, or pull on an orange knit dress with a squidgy purple hem. It is so rare for a designer to be optimistic and brave enough about the world to be an actual modernist — to envision the future and see novelty rather than dystopia.
