Men’s Wear in Milan: With a Foot in the Real World
By CATHY HORYN
MILAN — The more I think about Miuccia Prada’s spring men’s show here on Sunday, the more I think it’s just viciously dead-on.
She has managed to convey the emptiness of fashion via the metaphor of global tourism. Tranquilized by the sight of palm-leaf prints and 1940s suits, the older members of her audience get nostalgic and think: “From Here to Eternity.” Meanwhile, the junior editors couldn’t care less. They just want to score a bag.
Without trying to, Ms. Prada made a lot of suckers that day.
People are evidently so terrified of not liking the dish that Ms. Prada has prepared for them that they swallow it without tasting it. In spite of the backstage hosannas, this must be deeply frustrating to a woman of her intellectual curiosity. On the other hand, if people can’t grasp her purpose — which is to question our assumptions and ideas — then it’s not her problem.
Either way, people will go right on buying the stuff, unquestioningly, because of its brand associations.
Let’s recap. Ms. Prada’s show featured full-cut suits and silk tropical prints, shown on male and female models, against a painted backdrop of jungle fronds disturbed by a helicopter rotor. The clichés of trouble, even possible death, are stamped all over the place: the exotic landscape, the innocent young people, the hint of an attack or disaster. We’ve all seen the news.
Nonetheless, the audience — and I include myself — is clinging to clichés of its own, based on completely obsolete cultural artifacts, like pre-World War II Hawaii. And it’s not as if the clothes are that distinctive. In fact, a ’40s pinstriped suit — any suit nowadays — safely qualifies as obsolete.
Still, some of us rushed to greet her saying: “Nostalgia,” “romance.”
“Romance?” Ms. Prada said to me, frowning. “No, it’s menacing.”
Her idea was to question the notion of paradise, and to show that, beneath the hype, the reality is quite pessimistic. In fact, people are often unhappy and disconnected from tradition. Hence the models were never shown in pairs. It’s interesting that she chose this particular idea, since it could also apply to fashion and, to an extent, personal relationships. Though, perhaps, tactically she chose not to make a direct reference to fashion.
This is also the terrain of Michel Houellebecq, whose novel, “Platform,” is set amid Thailand’s sex tourism industry. Ms. Prada has said in the past she admires his work, and in all probability it influenced her thinking. Many critics find Mr. Houellebecq’s view of human beings sour, but he understands their obsession with products and labels, as well as youth and aspiration, and the unremitting tide of schlock it produces. For Ms. Prada, it must be a pleasure to think about fashion in this way, but it also must make her question her own role in feeding the behavior.
