What happens when a tracksuit mates with a cocktail dress? That question seemed to provide Miuccia Prada countless ideas for her Resort 2018 collection, in which she gleefully mashed up elements from the seemingly incompatible worlds of athletics and high fashion. Delicate chiffon pleats, feathers aplenty and sparkling embellishment were juxtaposed with technical knits, slouchy off-shoulder tracksuits and preppy knee-high sport socks, producing a neither-here-nor-there effect —typically Miuccia Prada — that appeared to sum up the scattered nature of today’s fashion industry.
The collection was startlingly referential, both of Prada’s old collections and of contemporary fashion; its Arabesque James Jean prints were an update of those the artist created for the brand in 2008, and the abbreviated duchesse satin minis — trimmed in black — looked like descendants of Spring 2010’s dresses. Even Spring 2017’s spaghetti strap slips and mandarin-collared marabou pyjamas, barely a year old, were given a premature revival.
As for the work of other designers, those shrug-worthy jackets clearly owed a debt to Demna Gvasalia’s Balenciaga debut, while the scattering of Prada’s name on socks, trainer straps and dresses called to mind Maria Grazia Chiuri’s work at Dior. Whether Prada was merely intuiting the times, or gently lampooning the cannibalistic impulses of fashion in the 2010s, is really anyone’s guess.