At Prada, Come for a Coffee and Stay for a Show
It’s 3:30 in the afternoon on Sunday, in Milan.
Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons are seated at a table; not far away, Damson Idris and Jack Harlow are laughing over coffee and Nicholas Hoult is holding court with Jason Bolden. We’re inside Bar Luce, less than an hour after Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons took their bow after the Fall-Winter 2026 Prada menswear show. Outside, there are hordes of screaming fans, hoping to catch a glimpse of one of the dazzling front-row guests; inside, it’s only slightly less chaotic, as journalists, buyers, stylists and other guests mill about, champagne, cappuccino or panino in hand.
There’s an argument to be made that the place to be on the day of a Prada show isn’t inside the Deposito of the Fondazione Prada, which the house uses as its show space, but inside Bar Luce. People grab a coffee and a light lunch before the show; dessert and a drink afterwards. Famously designed by Wes Anderson, it’s a space tinged with a retro, kitschy feel and, on the day of a show, it has an almost-absurd feel thanks to a varied cast of characters fit for one of Anderson’s films. Some of the conversation inside Bar Luce focuses on the clothes that the Prada-Simons duo, seated unassumingly within ear shot, have just presented.
After showing an airy, optimistic collection in June, the Fall-Winter 2026 show — and the clothes themselves — were imbued with a sense of angst. A seemingly pristine recreation of the interior of a Milanese apartment building, with walls rendered in creamy shades of beige and outfitted with ornate marble fireplaces revealed itself to be scuffed up, splintered and ramshackled the longer one looked at it.
With grunge music blaring, models wore coats cut slim and long, with ultra-long shirt sleeves dangling at the cuff. From the front, the silhouettes were tight and clean, but, as models walked by, they had bucket hats pressed flat and wrinkled against their back, as if they had spent a few days lying down on them. Knits looked sumptuous, but upon closer inspection featured low-slung necklines with slightly distressed hems. A white tank wasn’t actually white, mimicking instead the yellowish, off-white colour of a sweat-stained poplin. The palette was predominantly somber, rich in drab greys and dark blues. Fabrics were rugged and rough — birdseye knits and flecked flannels — and those that weren’t bore the patina of regular wear with creases and simuli-stains, with some lightweight jackets creased as if they had only just been unpacked from a suitcase after months of travelling folded tightly into squares. Wallets were messily stuffed into back pockets, creating unsightly bulges. A series of jackets were rendered in muted shades, with peeling bits revealing a richly coloured houndstooth beneath. What was the backstory here? Had it been covered to fit in? A relic from a time where standing out was a point of pride, but now, it’s increasingly hidden.
These were not clothes for the care-free, beautiful living Simons and Prada had portrayed in June. They were, the pair’s show notes said, clothes for “uncomfortable, unpredictable times.” That didn’t mean they were not beautiful clothes — beautiful in the way that they bore the marks of having been lived in and yet persisted still, just like our scuffed up walls. On the surface, like the set, they looked pristine and clean-cut, but the longer you looked, the more the cracks appeared.
Standing in Bar Luce, afterwards, I couldn’t help but feel like it was analogous to the time we’re living in. Across the street, the athlete’s village for the Olympics lay still-unfinished, as Italian authorities frantically scramble to host the world in a fortnight. Further away, still, the world feels like it’s at a much more serious tipping point, with the threat of war brewing and social unrest taking root across the globe. And yet here we were, from Damson Idris to myself, laughing and talking about clothes. Little is lost on either Miuccia Prada or Raf Simons and it was hard to not imagine them being painfully aware of the irony.
There’s a veneer of perfection, but look closely and the cracks are showing, life is happening — who cares if you’ve stained your hat or wrinkled your shirt?
PHOTOS COURTESY OF PRADA.
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