Dressing for Self at Prada
Review of Prada Fall 2025 Fashion Show
By Angela Baidoo
THE COLLECTION
THE VIBE
A Question of Femininity, The Untypical, Liberating Constriction
Prada has always been consistent in its exploration of alternative perceptions of what is considered beautiful. Off-beat colours, jarring textures or non-conformist proportions, they have done it all, and done it well. Becoming a go-to for fashion that defies the strict definitions around femininity. And it was femininity and what it means today that was on the minds of the co-creative directors for fall.
Today’s press release outlined that the show was to be an ‘interrogation’ of the concepts of what is femininity today, and of course how it should be defined – gender, appearance, mannerisms? A conversation that couldn’t be happening at a more pressing time as in the US a reversion to ‘gender assigned at birth’ as a determining factor of the gender which appears on a passport became law. Model Hunter Schafer – who was in the front row today – recently took to social media to decry the decision after a passport renewal labelled her as male, despite living as a trans-woman. Pointing to the fact the everything in life is now political whether we choose to engage or not, and with more designers afraid to take risks fashion is likely to become less revolutionary by the day.
Rather than presenting a clear cut answer to the question of what femininity means today there were instead more questions asked as the collection encouraged viewers to start a discussion around “our collective perception of the typicality of femininity, about notions of beauty, about how those perceptions can constantly change”. What was presented were not cookie cutter examples of femininity in fashion form – as Prada rarely is – in fact the clothes were almost deliberately skewed and (ill-fitting) provoking even the most die-hard Prada fan to test their own ingrained views, as Raf Simons said backstage “When you think about the words, you already go to a classic and traditional image”. LBDs became “Fragments of garments [which] shift around the body, liberated from their original function and language” and were emblematic of what the duo were trying to explore. The dress throughout history has come to represent a de-facto uniform for women to ‘look pretty’ and conform. To this day many do not feature that most utilitarian of needs i.e. the pocket, least it ruin the form-fitting nature of the garment that is most pleasing to the male gaze. In freeing it from this restriction, or constriction as they referred to it, a new archetype of femininity is free to be birthed. Within the collection redressing the balance also looked like classic proportions altered, construction emphasised via reduction and seams exposed intentionally to shake-up how we perceive what gets to be called beautiful.
The ‘untypical’ – meaning ‘not showing all the characteristics that you would usually expect from a particular group of things’ as the word is defined – caused a double take with knitwear that was treated as if it were a woven for this liberation of the dress. Rather than allow it to naturally stretch around the body (as it was designed to do) it stood apart from it with the weight of the yarn construction creating a satisfying bounce with each movement. Another goal for today was liberation of movement (as well as ideas) and this created a new ‘characteristic’ in the structured knit dress.
THE DIRECTION
THE QUOTE
The (LBDs) were of the mod today, we are in a very black mood… every single morning you read the newspaper and to keep up hopes is a big effort, and we/I think that the only thing you can do – because its not our role to protest, I don’t want to be political – is work hard, its the only thing you seriously have to do”
Miuccia Prada, co-creative director, Prada
“If you think about feminine beauty, not only in the past, but also still today there is a lot of constriction – on movement and the construction – but we also think its interesting to think about liberation of ideas”
Raf Simons, co-creative director, Prada
THE WRAP UP
The present climate is going to make exploring what it means to be a woman – gender, sexuality, bodily autonomy – a hot topic for many more seasons to come, but in exploring the concept designers (although they may not consider themselves revolutionaries) are going to have to take some sort of stand, until they eventually have to pick a side. Simons spoke to this backtsage saying “When we think about the idea of liberation we very much thought about the clothes, the clothes, the clothes , but its also about a way of thinking. Liberation always comes with risk-taking. You cannot liberate if you don’t take risks and there needs to be (not in the form of today’s collection), but there needs to be more resistance”. Whether that is in a rejection of beauty ideals, or the more overt slogan T-shirt (always best for making a provocative statement clear in black and white), to who they invite to their shows more risk-taking is needed, lets hope by the end of the season we will have seen the first signs of a push back.
