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The stunning Palais d’Iéna provided an elegant setting for Miuccia Prada’s cinematic finale to Paris Fashion Week. With a complex wooden set designed by Rem Koolhaas’ OMA, a dark and smokey ambience, and the jazz trumpet opening of ‘Miles and Miles of Miles Davis‘ by way of Malcolm McLaren, it was a perfect setting for a procession of cinematic femme fatales to seduce and intrigue. It is, however, never straight forward with Miuccia and this time elegant 50′s shapes came distorted in stiff dark denim; the contemporary touch of a contemporary house. Prada’s characteristic perversity could be found in the unexpected and purposefully luxurious choice of lining, duchesse satin, usually reserved for Haute Couture. Tops were deliberately cut to be ill fitting and thick mink stoles came tie-dyed, whilst plasticised vinyl was cut into classic couture shapes; deftly mixing rich and poor fabrics, couture and workwear ideas with elegant ease. It was grown up, but youthful with it, in the oversized proportions paired with slender ladylike mid-calf skirts, sparkly flat Greccian sandals worn with leather opera gloves that ruched at the wrist and sexy brassiere tops hidden beneath elegant swinging clutch coats. As Miuccia Prada said backstage “The femme fatale is never perfect…at least the ones I like.”
Text: Caroline Newell
Photography: Mitchell Sams
See all of our SS13 womenswear coverage here.
