The Portable Prada
Prada has a pocket fetish. Now, we all know that Prada is one of the most functional brands in luxury so, Prada with pockets? Been there, ogled over that. But Prada with loads of pockets? Now we're talkin',
And it's not even that Prada's cargo-pocketed Spring/Summer 2024 shirts, jackets, and vests are all that dynamic on paper, necessarily.
Fisherman vests, field shirts, and cargo jackets are classic cool, utilitarian layers made better by an excess of storage. And especially in a fashion context, more pockets makes clothes look cooler. Hey, worked for Junya Watanabe.
But Prada's pocket-plentiful SS24 layering pieces are doubly potent because of context.
It's not difficult to toss on a red vest or cargo jacket and its even less difficult to make them look bad. Even moreso with a little Prada badge on the chest.
They're just not wearable clothes, though. They're also a tangible reminder of how well Prada understands conventional modes of dressing.
Maybe more than any other luxury label, Prada has a knack for deliciously practical design. And what's more practical than pockets?
But, really, though much can be (and should, and has been) said of Prada's current hot streak, the secret to what makes today's Prada so good is no secret. It simply boils down to a simple concept: real, wearable clothes.
All fashion houses make stuff that sells — handbags, scents, shoes — but perhaps more than any other peer (save sibling line Miu Miu), Prada doubles down on the sort of excellently effortless gear that populates any closet of taste.
Prada also proffers statement pieces, of course, like the SS24 cargo shirt studded with fabric flowers. But even that is rooted (pun.... intended?) in the actual item's utilitarian appeal.
The covetable usefulness innate to Prada's clothes has been present since even before Raf Simons joined Miuccia Prada at the house's head but you can truly sense Simons' presence in the menswear line's youthful nowness.
For instance, Prada's Spring/Summer 2024 menswear runway show — which snared a remarkable 6.5m views on YouTube — proposed faded chore coats, colorful coats, and an ample spread of cargo layers. During a Fashion Week overwhelmed with gimmickry, Prada stood out with impressively uncomplicated and utterly "real" clothes.
And that's the thing. Prada's plethora of pockets are unpretentiously excellent, a balm for hedonistic overindulgence and stuffy luxury.
In fact, that's not such a bad summation of Prada itself.
