"I'm tired of minimalism," Prada said before her show. "I asked myself, 'How can I do minimal Baroque?'"
In fact, critics can hardly seem to stand how good she makes them feel. The reviews pouring in from Milan have reached a whole new level of worship, to a collection whose references ranged from hospital scrubs to seventeenth-century cherubs to Jazz Age eccentric figure Josephine Baker. Prada delivered electric hits of orange, green and radioactive blue and violet in deliberately plain cotton suits, like the most extraordinary uniforms. That theme continued in all the kind of stripes. Miuccia never shies away from an inside joke, but her banana-print blouse is Prada at its most perfect, some heady, bizarro mix of fun frump and classic nostalgia.
As a result, what she has to say never seems useless or old.
