For decades, the mantra of Milan fashion week has been that sex sells. Paris does intellectual and chic, London does weird and innovative, New York does polished and commercial, and Milan does sex and glamour. Simple. But the impact of #MeToo, working in an unlikely pincer movement with the rise of the modest pound, as luxury fashion’s Middle Eastern customer base continues to outpace other markets, is pushing sexy dresses on to the wrong side of history. The ciabatta-e-burro of this city’s catwalks has gone stale.
And so Milan is reinventing itself. After a few years during which she seemed to be edging out of the frame, Miuccia Prada, is back on form: profits are up, critics are raving. Introspection has never been big at Milan fashion week, but Prada is constantly questioning her own work and the world around her, poking around in the uncomfortable contradictions. "It was all about what’s happening in the world now," she said after this show. "On the one hand, you wish for freedom, for liberation, for fantasy, and the other you have this extreme conservatism." There were plunging necklines and short skirts on the catwalk, but the standout beauties were the prim looks that she has always made sublime: a grey sweater, a white shirt collar, a stiff satin skirt. Prada studied mime for five years in the 1960s, and recalled in W magazine recently her lessons with Etienne Decorum: "One day, he limited us to only moving our fingers – the body control was extreme." She learned to say a lot, without making much noise; she does it on the catwalk still.
