Prada - Spring/Summer 2011

Miuccia Prada may claim to be tired of minimalism when backstage, but that does not mean that the queen of avant-garde fashion has finished with the pure, clean line. This season, she is searching for a bit of humor and fantasy to produce what she calls "baroque minimalism."

After having flirted with the Mad Men look (at the risk of losing her own acidic uniqueness), Prada has come back to the conceptual elegance so dear to her soul. In order to do so, the Italian Madonna celebrated her love for the uniform, paid homage to Josephine Baker, sprinkled all of it with a candid and audacious touch of mischief, and presented in an enormous electrical religious ceremony. In its entirety, the show had a strange aura, something between techno dreams and style taken seriously.

The show opened with a florescent orange dress reminding us of doctors' smocks, accompanied by a very 1920s fur stole. This was followed by a series of serious, monochrome ensembles whose strident colors gave them an uncompromising modernity.

Just when we started asking ourselves where the mistress of the house was hiding her "baroque minimalism," the 7th catwalk entrance brought us the answer with stripes brightened up by little chubby-cheeked cherubs seemingly brought in directly from the Château de Versailles.

Delicately drawn, these motifs perform a trompe-l'oeil, giving the effect of a sophisticated and virtual lace on the various dresses and blouses. Alternating between licorice black to peppy yellow, these motifs call to mind the florescent décor of a Berliner rave rather than 17th century paintings.

As for the Josephine Baker references, they were not limited to the models' lacquered hairstyles: they were also found in banana prints, flounced dresses, and even sketches recalling the jazz diva's silhouette.

These were followed by a debauchery of stripes, whose daring color harmonies had everything of Sonia Rykiel. This being said, when these stripes became the integral part of an ensemble (from the Brazilian hat to the mink stole to the matching suit), the overall graphic effect (as attention-getting as it might be) could cause a slight headache.

In the end, if Prada's high-energy 20s digressions end up winning over only the diehard fans, the array of little black dresses closing the show had what it takes to convince a larger audience hungry for timeless chic... without mentioning the famous scrolled glasses that have a strong chance of taking over the top position on the fashionista's nose from Alexander Wang.

Click here to view the entire collection: http://www.style.com/S2011RTW-PRADA