What’s so great about the It dress?
Prada’s candy-coloured, jewelled frock has taken over fashion mags around the world
“I hope it looked ironic,” said Miuccia Prada backstage after her autumn/winter 2015 show. She was speaking of the sugarspun pastels, jewelled bows, metallic Mary-Janes, ostrich leather opera gloves and mink epaulettes that accompanied her latest princessy dress offering. Prada has made a habit of creating tongue-in-cheek collections, all rapturously received by a po-faced fashion press. But this season she excelled herself: in a spectacular show of 41 “sweet but violent” looks, the only irony was that all the fashion editors wanted to get their hands on just one particular dress.
What dress could spark such a reaction? Think pink — as well as a corresponding version in Smurf blue — and pair it with a raised waist, thin spaghetti straps, a neoprene bell shape, satin bows and crystal brooches. This winning formula has proved so popular that the dress has appeared on no fewer than three magazine covers this month.
The pink dress also appeared in editorial spreads in American Vogue, Teen Vogue and W magazine, priced at around $5,225.
Such coincidence has sparked rumours of a feud among fashion editors, each apparently convinced that they had been promised “an exclusive” on the dress. The New York Post’s Page Six column reported that the model Gigi Hadid had been poised to wear the pink dress on the cover of W magazine’s September issue, but the editor switched the image for one of Hadid in furry Dior upon discovering that rival magazines had also featured the dress. W magazine denies this.
But what is it about this dress that it has come to define a season — and a winter season at that? According to U.K. fashion editor Aurelia Donaldson, the Prada show heralded an esthetic shift. “Everything has been clean, simple and understated for so long, and suddenly Prada gave us candy colours and pretty, dainty, embellished pieces. We were hungering after something decadent, rather than practical — which is why this dress captured the imagination. We’ll all be dressing in a more feminine way next season.”
Laura Weir, fashion features editor of British Vogue, and the woman who chose the pink dress for the cover of Vogue’s catwalk report supplement, agrees. “Prada can be relied upon to make us recalibrate the way we think women want to dress. This image defined the season and expressed a new, surprising or provocative mood — it had colour and energy.”
Perhaps it’s also something to do with pink. Few colours inspire such dichotomous responses, and few can shape-shift with such dexterity. Pink can be tacky or ladylike; girlie or angry; shocking or saccharine.
Maybe, though, it was simpler than that: pink is pretty. And in a dark world, who doesn’t need a little bit of that?
We were hungering after something decadent, rather than practical — which is why this dress captured the imagination.
AURELIA DONALDSON
U.K. FASHION EDITOR