Prada’s Brits
British actor Callum Turner took in his first Prada show, although he said he had been to Milan a few times. “I love Milan and managed to see friends in a short amount of time,” he said, adding a few Italian words. Coming up for Turner are a BBC “conspiracy thriller” and his role as Frank Churchill in a new rendition of “Emma,” opposite Anya Taylor-Joy playing the titular heroine. “We need more Emma,” he joked about the latest cinematic version of the Jane Austen novel. Filming “in and around England” will start in May, directed by this “really cool American photographer and director Autumn de Wilde, who did Beck's album and lots of iconic rock ‘n' roll photos.”
British actor Will Poulter said he was in Milan just for the Prada show, although he did manage to squeeze in one Italian meal. “Yeah, we went to Pizza Express,” joked Turner, who was sitting nearby. The Brits never leave their sense of humor behind, do they? Poulter is currently playing Colin, a computer programmer, in “Black Mirror: Bandersnatch” on Netflix and will star in “Midsommar,” a film about a summer holiday gone wrong, which is due for release later this year.
Turner and Poulter were flanked by fellow British thespians Jeremy Irvine and Joe Cole. — LUISA ZARGANI ahead of her fall men's show in Milan, the designer candidly approached the subject of cultural appropriation and freedom of speech — and of thought — clearly issues that have been top-of-mind after recent accusations of racism against the brand, which her company has vehemently denied.
In December, Prada faced online accusations that animal-like figurines and charms in its stores and windows evoked blackface. The group subsequently issued a statement saying it “abhors racist imagery” and vowed to withdraw the items from “display and circulation,” while explaining that the figures are “fantasy charms composed of elements of the Prada oeuvre” and known as Pradamalia. The brand nonetheless pledged to improve its “diversity training.”
“I increasingly think anything one does today can cause offense,” Miuccia Prada said Sunday, speaking in soft tones, at the headquarters of the cultural Fondazione Prada. “There can sometimes be a lack of generosity but, on the other hand, how can we know all cultures? The Chinese protest, then the Sikh, then Mexicans, then Afro-Americans. But how can you know the details of each single culture so well when there can be 100 different cultures in every country?”
She went on to talk about how “people want respect because now there is talk of cultural appropriation, but this is the foundation of fashion, as it has always been the basis of art, of everything.”
This has led Prada to ask herself, when she is readying a collection and a show, “Am I offending someone?” What she sees as a provocation, “could it be read as an offense?”
“Those who are offended are offended, so I don't know how we can solve this problem. Surely, I feel like not saying anything, not doing anything, so I don't have any problem. Because then the famous web hate is massive.”
Prada sees this “problem of lack of freedom” at this moment as fundamental. “I talked about it with the Fondazione [Prada], with the intellectuals, it really is a problem — one would have to set up ‘secret societies' — otherwise there is no progressive thinking. If you are not free to say things that may also not be correct and you have to be careful every time you open your mouth, how can you talk with freedom of thought? This really is a turning point. The world is bigger and I understand this and I also understand that people finally have a voice and speak up.” — L.Z. Ermenegildo Zegna Group. Although his own show is slated for Paris next week, the designer took the time to fly to Milan to show his support for Zegna, which took a majority stake in Thom Browne Inc. at the end of August. While Browne demurred from detailing any specific future plan for the brand, he said there will be “a lot more stores opening in the next couple of years.”
In a sign of Zegna's pull in China, Hong Kong singer and actor William Chan
Wai-ting attended the show, flanked by, among others, the brand's longtime friend, actor Daniel Brühl; model Winnie Harlow, who snapped photos of the looks throughout the show, and American actor McCaul Lombardi, who fronted Zegna's advertising campaign with Robert De Niro in 2017. Michele Norsa, vice chairman of Missoni, was also at the show, having joined the board of Zegna in 2017. — L. Z.