Prada opened Milan Fashion Week with a Spring/Summer 2027 collection built around one of fashion’s most ordinary garments, the skirt.
Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons framed the season around “the skirt as object”, testing how much identity could be extracted from a single, universal form through constant variation. And variation there was — pencils, pleats, transparency, florals, embellishment and constructions that made the skirt feel less like the supporting half of an outfit and more like the entire proposition.
Some of the most arresting versions were almost jewelled objects. Dense fields of crystal flowers, beads and sequins transformed knee-length skirts into moving surfaces of colour and light. Elsewhere, pleating was punctuated with glossy discs, while simpler midi shapes offered a simpler counterpoint. For the modest dresser, a skirt is always a win when it comes to styling possibilities. At Prada SS27, they offered an obvious point of interest, intricate enough to carry a look, but structured enough to sit beneath longer outerwear, fine knits or tailored separates.
Then came the fashion-person headline, the banana heel is back. First seen in Prada’s Fall 2007 collection, the backward-curving heel returned beneath pointed pumps and pared-back sandals — archive recognition without a literal reissue.
Colour supplied the collection’s sharpest punctuation. Purple, acid green, lacquer red and saturated pink repeatedly cut through black, white and muted neutrals. Pink appeared in prim skirt suits and softer separates, green flashed through accessories and hyper-bright floral panels, red in leather, handbags and accents, while violet and amethyst tones ran through the floral beadwork. The palette felt synthetic, floral and slightly abrasive rather than traditionally romantic.
And because it’s not Prada without accessories, there was plenty to ogle. Elongated lacquered handbags shared space with eye-wear that played with proportion and construction, including almost inverted pairs, weighted beneath the lenses and outlined differently around each eye.
Prada SS27 explored how far a single garment could stretch through changes in texture, proportion and finish, and it was a job well done.
