At a secretive press conference in Milan on Sunday, it was announced that the Belgian designer Raf Simons will become co-creative director of Prada alongside Miuccia Prada, who has been at the head of the family-owned brand since 1978.
The news confirms months of rumours, sparked by a now-deleted tweet by Wall Street Journalist Jacob Gallagher, as well as dozens of tweets from leak accounts.
In an interview with the two designers for System magazine three years ago, Miuccia Prada said, ‘One thing that I would really love to do is to work with Raf, and maybe with other people – it would be so much fun. If I could do a show with him, imagine how much fun we would have.’
Why is it a big deal?
Simons will be the first person outside the Prada family to hold a major position since the house’s inception, while fashion nerds are salivating over the potential this meeting of two of the most cerebral designers in the industry might create.
Why is Simons so special?
Hailed for his subversive aesthetic, the 52-year-old is considered one of the industry’s most inventive designers and has previously tenured as head of design at Calvin Klein, Jil Sander and, perhaps most famously, Dior, becoming the subject of the documentary Dior and I.
His time at Calvin Klein was not without drama, however, ending in him exiting the business nine months before his contract ended. At the press conference Simons said, ‘Mr Bertelli [CEO of Prada group and husband of Miuccia Prada] approached me right after my exit from Calvin Klein. Miuccia and I had a conversation about creativity in today’s fashion system. And it brought me to open dialogue with many designers, not just Mrs Prada.’ Alongside his new role, Simons will continue to design for his namesake menswear label in Antwerp.
What is a co-creative director anyway?
There will be equal responsibilities for creative decision-making between the two designers. Prada said Simons’s contract could last ‘forever’, which suggests that at some point down the line Simons could succeed Prada and be passed full creative control of the brand.
What will this mean for Miuccia Prada?
Is retirement in the pipeline? ‘Absolutely not,’ Prada, who is 71, said at the press conference. ‘I like working, and I’m very excited and this will bring new wind.’
What are people saying about it?
Fashion critic and editor-at-large of Business of Fashion Tim Blanks posted on Instagram, ‘I can’t think of anything like this in the history of fashion,’ while Hamish Bowles wrote for Vogue.com that the collaboration ‘seems like a masterstroke of innovative thinking.’
What can we expect?
The union will likely fire up a shift in aesthetic. Both designers share a passion for art – Prada has set up galleries in Milan, Shanghai and Venice and Simons’s collaborators include the artist Sterling Ruby – and ideas.
‘What matters for me is ideas, and the aesthetics are totally secondary,’ Prada has said in an interview, while Simons’s website reads, ‘I don’t want to show clothes, I want to show my attitude, my past, present and future.’
When can we start shopping?
Simons will officially join on April 2, 2020. Their first show as co-creative directors will be the spring/summer 2021 womenswear collection, which will be presented in Milan in September 2020, and ready to buy in early 2021.
