Prada’s monumental scaffolding show set was a ‘exploration of contrasts’

A Prada show is defined by transformation: the evolution of an idea, the altering of a silhouette, a familiar garment made unfamiliar, the power to shift the eye. This has long been Miuccia Prada’s MO, one which has continued alongside co-creative director Raf Simons who began at the Italian house in 2020.

The same goes for the show space itself, the hangar-like Deposito in Fondazione Prada’s Torre building, where the house has held shows since its opening in 2018. Each season, Miuccia Prada and Simons work alongside AMO on the show sets, which are defined by similar acts of transformation: in recent years the Deposito has become a surreal corporate office hovering over a lush forest floor encased in perspex, a sci-fi space station complete with dripping goo, and an enormous paper house that made attendees Lilliputian in scale.

‘An exploration of contrast’: Prada’s A/W 2025 menswear show set

Yesterday afternoon (19 January 2025), for the house’s A/W 2025 menswear show, AMO utilised the vast height of the Deposito to erect a scaffolding structure on which guests were spread over two floors (the clue came in the collection’s invitation, a slice of metal scaffolding engraved with the Prada logo and the season). The industrial feel – reminiscent of entering a nightclub or rave – was contrasted with the carpet, which was decorated with an art deco pattern of swirling lines and flowers, stretching across the runway and along the staircases. It was taken from an original print by Catherine Martin, the Australian designer who worked alongside Miuccia Prada on the costumes for Baz Luhrmann’s 2013 The Great Gatsby.

‘An exploration of contrast,’ described Prada of the set. ‘A series of levels divide the space, contradicting the scale of the monumental hall, the shifting lighting and atmosphere echoing filmic scenes. Evoking intimacies – the closeness of a club – these become representative of places for the most direct of human instincts, our need to come together.’

Like the house’s previous womenswear show, the designers talked about the idea of eclecticism and intuition, which Simons described as ‘unconscious dialogue between ideas, coming from everywhere, and then allowing them to sit together in a way that seems uncommon and new’. Titled ‘Unbroken Intuitions’, the collection’s garments moved between a suggestion of softness and romance – floral motifs on T-shirts and hoods, washed-out plaid, shrunken knits – and something more ‘primitive’ in raw-cut slices of faux fur and patch-worked leather. Nods to Americana came in sweaters slashed across the chest, reminiscent of the yoke of a western shirt, and cowboy boots, tweaked upwards at the toe.

‘Romance inspiring passion,’ elucidated Mrs Prada. ‘A liberating instinct, which is so crucial at the moment; it’s the season of artificial intelligence, and this is our move again towards humanity. Towards instinct, passion and romance.’

prada.com