January 20, 2006

David Sylvian's sonorous tones crooned the dark, waltz-timed Night Porter on the soundtrack, invoking images of a Mittel Europa-isch world out of time. It's a place Miuccia Prada has visited before. This trip, however, she opted for a more monochrome approach than usual. "This is my childhood," she stated after the show. "I grew up wearing Tyrolean clothes." But there was little sense of youthful playfulness in the outfits—the worn-looking gray suit, the loden coat and trousers, the high-waisted houndstooth jacket—that made their way down the catwalk. The models, on the other hand, were so young that some seemed to be having trouble mustering the strength to raise feet shod in huge studded hiking boots.

The Austro-Hungarian influence seeped through in epauletted coats and stirruped pants, both of which suggested boy riders at a military academy. The green suede breeches and the trousers tucked into boots also had an equestrian flavor. Heraldry resurfaced from Miuccia's signature show earlier in the week in the form of a pop-bright print on a shirt as well as a cluster of badge-like attachments for shirts and caps. Boy scouts perhaps? Fingerless gloves and skinny-rib knits so fine they were almost sheer sealed the sense that these were clothes for callow youths.

Miuccia twinkled at the thought that there might be a strand of decadence in the collection, but it was really innocence that was on show here.

— Tim Blanks