Live From... Milan Fashion Week, Day 2

Prada

             

Miuccia Prada was in playful mood for spring/summer 2012. Drawing on retro Americana influences for her latest menswear collection, she referenced golfing, kitsch resort dressing, and vintage 50s sportswear, worked in happy mismatched combinations of neat tailoring, with strong commercial casual sportwear looks that are bound to be a huge influence on the junior high street.

The look: Miami golfer meets the rhinestone cowboy

Silhouette: Casual and easy, but pin neat

Key items: A focused set of key items reworked in various colours and fabric or print combinations, with the neat but boxy 6DB and 2SB jacket coming as a blazer or as a suit component teamed with a classic pant silhouette and the contradictory mix of a printed resort shirt. A more casual look focuses on knee-length shorts and a zipped padded jacket worked in-anything-goes mismatched fabric mixes, or the kitsch printed resort shirts which look set to be the collection's hottest item. Americana influences include classic Western shirts reworked in clashing prints or with rhinestone trims, maybe teamed with an incongruous floral print pant. Patterned Johnny-collar tops and simple Harrington jackets embellished with cowboy-style studs are two other key items we can expect to see impacting the high street any day soon

Colour: Cool greys and a range of washed sky blues mixed in combination with 50s-style Formica pastels – think lemon, baby blue and blue, mango, and spearmint – used in prints, contrasting with summer darks, like espresso, Burgundy, indigo and charcoal, with camel as a grounding neutral

Fabric & knit: Mohair suitings, lightweight micro check suitings, windowpane check suitings, cotton poplin, chambray, cotton, jersey, fine-gauge knits

Print & pattern: Vivid retro florals, small-scale foulard-style geometrics in rich darks, quirky 50s-inspired conversational on pastel grounds

Details & trims: Rhinestones, studding treatments

Footwear: Two-tone kiltie-fringed golf shoes in pastels or rich dark colour combinations of tan, with oxblood or navy, some with glittering rhinestone trims

Accessories: Floral-patterned golf bags look set to be the new hot Prada accessory item, along with printed flat caps, cravats and neckerchiefs. Flat envelope document/iPad case-style bags get the Prada treatment in clashing two-tone colours or with decorative rhinestone trims

Posted in: menswear,Milan Fashion Week,Prada,SS/ 12