PRADA, WHEN EXPERIMENTATION OVERTAKES THE SENSE OF THE PRODUCT AND OF IDENTITY

Prada remains a brand I deeply respect for its ability to hold together research, industry, vision and product. It is one of the few Italian brands that has managed to build a strong system, thanks also to Patrizio Bertelli’s entrepreneurial vision and the strength of its production base in Tuscany.

That said, in front of the SS27 men’s show I felt a certain distance. Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons certainly deserve credit for pushing the language of fashion beyond the predictable, for seeking, experimenting, breaking patterns. But experimentation, when taken too far, risks losing touch with an essential question: can this product be desired, bought, worn, lived by everyone?

It isn’t a matter of being nostalgic, out of time or unable to understand the new. It is a matter of recognizing that those who observe, interpret and love fashion also have their own aesthetic taste, their own sensibility, their own idea of male beauty. Not everything supported by the system, told as research or legitimized by the culture of the moment automatically becomes convincing.

Fashion can provoke, of course. It can shift the boundary, change the language, open new directions. But when menswear is pushed toward an aesthetic that is too fragile, forced or scarcely desirable, the risk is no longer that of research: it is that of losing the sense of the product.

With great respect for Prada, my impression is this: experimentation is fundamental, but it should never forget the real man, the real body and the real desire to wear something that has strength, beauty, presence and identity, masculine…