PRADA PRINT: EVERYBODY SHIRTS SOME TIMES
Following its hometown debut in Milan, where Prada’s masculine “Made to Measure” ser vice fir st allowed customers to take inspiration directly from the house’s histor ical archives, this innovative initiative is taking to the r oad. It will tra vel fir st to Taiwan (between April 24 and April 28) and then K uala Lumpur (from April 30 until May 1). Its USP is this: a Prada men’s shirt can be or dered based not just upon the client’s specific measurements, but by allowing him to choose the v arious pr ints as well. There are 16 available pr ints – all iconic master pieces from the Italian brand – that can be mix ed and matched. One par ticular half-and-half match pair s the stylised flames from S/S 2012 in the same shir t with sur realist lipstick pr ints, presented for S/S 20 00, seemingly as b ullets. Then there are the more recurrent geometr ic pr ints that have become the ar chetype and greatest Prada-enunciated expression of what is con ventionally considered “ugly”. From left to r ight, these shir ts seem to leap fr om one season to the next. Take, for example, the banana pr ints of S/S 2011, liberally inspired by the jazz scene in the early 20th centur y and an obscure tr ibute to Josephine Baker, which lead into r ed roses, a sarcastic metaphor for a sickly s weet romanticism. This is a w ay for f ashion to break down clichés and under mine rhetor ic. Glamour can be exquisitely ir onic and Machiavellian when symbolism is twisted to offer up a cer tain socio-political point of vie w. Thus, the comics-inspired pr ints from the recent S/S 2018 season, now offered in monochrome, take on the moder n conflict between the real and virtual, while neon pink Hawaiian pr ints, seeming fr ivolities from S/S 2014, are paired with exotic paradise pr ints ready to tur n into apocalyptic scenes of w ar, implicitly referencing moments of P acific rim conflict like Pearl Harbor or the Vietnam War. This game of oxymorons can be found in the pair ing of diverging pr ints, which harmoniously coexist in the same shir t, concealing symbols in coded messages that r epresent eter nally conflicting emotions.