Milan ? Entitled "Il Palazzo" and featuring a rarefied list of major league actors - Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Gary Oldman and Tim Roth, to name a few - the latest runway show by the house of Prada was a fashionable statement on the power of dressing, rather than just powerful dressing.
Attired, nearly all of them, in long noble coats, the actors and models marched around with the self-assurance and arrogance of men used to getting their own way, of owning the space that surrounds them.
"A large room, a carpet so big it is non-existent, defying proportions," intoned the program notes of this show, staged in Prada's main show-space, a renovated factory in central Milan, made over with a truly enormous carpet the size of three tennis courts.
Oldman, who won the honor of being the final model, was dressed in an elongated frock coat and slim pants, emoting like some aristocratic landowner welcoming guests into his country house. Brody appeared in a hunting pink top coat trimmed with astrakhan, while Roth swaggered out almost searching for confrontation in a three-piece serge suit. Yet, even if the silhouettes and garments were classical, designer Miuccia Prada gave each a fresh twist, as every breast pocket sprouted miniature pistols and faux military memorabilia.
"It was about the way a powerful man expresses his will through his dress. We wanted a couple of strong actors to express that, so we invited nine to be sure that we had enough. But in the end they all accepted!" Prada said backstage after the show on Sunday, Jan. 15.
The designer also played on lots of Prada references, from tie fabrics used in apparel to embellished shoes. For fall 2012, Signora Prada would like to see gents in brogues and wingtips covered in painted carnation and rose petals. Watch how this will be a major global trend.
The designer also sent out many men in aviator glasses, "to make them more evil," she said with a laugh, before imbibing a glass of her latest post-show cocktail, a wake up call composed of vodka and sherry. The same bold red was the main color in the geometric carpet, so large it was hard to recognize the features of faces on the other side.
Six banks of hundreds of hanging fluorescent lights were all that illuminated the collection, itself a brilliant tour de force of tailoring, and most importantly a clever meditation on how men really do reveal exactly what they think of themselves by the way they dress.
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