What does femininity mean today? How can it be defined?

 

The Fall/Winter 2025 Prada show by Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons is an interrogation of these concepts – itself an exercise in posing questions, provoking discussion, around our collective perception of the typicality of femininity, about notions of beauty, about how those perceptions can constantly change.

Displacement, rescaling, rematerialization, recontextualizing and decontextualizing. Dresses – emblematic of femininity – are constantly, ceaselessly transformed, through both form and how each is worn. Fragments of garments shift around the body, liberated from their original function and language. Non-recognizable in appearance, we question their origin. Their meanings change as they move, while through reactions between separate items, new silhouettes can be created. Proportions are altered, adjusting the behavior of clothes and the rapport between body and dress. In a process of reduction, construction becomes emphasized. Untypical materials are used, raw seams exposed with intention. Gestures of glamour in accessories – jewels, handbags, bows, decoration – contrast with this rawness, an opposition. This difference and divergence is reflective of the multiplicity of femininity, a further questioning of its determination.

Within the Deposito of the Fondazione Prada, rawness is contraposed with refinement, structure with decoration in the show décor. Metal scaffold reconfigures the space, laid with a carpet originally designed by Catherine Martin. In laying bare these visual dichotomies, this environment, in turn, can be seen as a reflection of a complexity of meaning embedded in the clothing.