Prada Wears The Devil

Dear Amateur Fashion Fans:

I have been waiting for the perfect moment to rant about an atrocity so Ultra Naff, so indescribably stupid, without reason and incredibly self serving that it makes me type like Mike Tyson (I don't know exactly how he types but I can imagine it). 

Many of you, if not all, will be familiar with the super-brand, high end, mostly couture, Italian fashion label Prada. What you probably wont be familiar with (unless you have no life like me)is Prada's signature styles, colours, cuts etc that are 'Pradesque' (my word, not theirs) and therefore immediately trendy. You may also remember this quote from the movie-The Devil Wears Prada.

Andy, the inexperienced assistant annoys Miranda Priestly, the editor of Runway, by calling some haute couture accessories "stuff". Miranda then flawlessly delivers a reply. 

"This... 'stuff'? Oh... ok. I see, you think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select out, oh I don't know, that lumpy blue sweater, for instance, because you're trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back. But what you don't know is that that sweater is not just blue, it's not turquoise, it's not lapis, it's actually cerulean. You're also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar De La Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was Yves St Laurent, wasn't it, who showed cerulean military jackets? I think we need a jacket here. And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of 8 different designers. Then it filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic casual corner where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs and so it's sort of comical how you think that you've made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you're wearing the sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room. From a pile of stuff."

You just feel like saying ZING! after reading that.

If you haven't seen the movie I highly recommend it even to people who couldn't care less about fashion journalism simply because Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep are amazing, the script is witty and sharp and it even has cool music and a smokin' Adam Grenier from Entourage. 

Anyway, this quote from TDWP sprung to my mind immediately after my eyes were violated by the picture below in the fashion section of the Good Weekend Magazine a few weeks back. 

This is from Prada's 2009 Spring collection Im pretty sure.

I know, right? I just sat there thinking: "Wow, Prada, you can come up with the 2008 Prada Resort collection and then create this monstrosity?

I think I know how it happened:

Some low level shoe designer had a big weekend, then came into work on Monday and got sprung with the memo of a Design Meeting in 5 minutes. So he/she hastily scribbles down the first thing that comes into his/her Sangria-addled brain: Thigh.High.Gumboots.

The designer goes into the meeting and after the boss designer retracts his jaw from the floor he screams at the designer for getting all Sangria-ed the night before the design meeting. Because he/she's scared of loosing their sweet job, the designer meekly lies to the boss that 'its all the rage in Paris'. The Boss freezes for a second and then tells the designer that of course he knew that, he was just testing him/her before snatching away the drawing and making sure that Prada have that thigh high gumboot out ASAP to beat France to the punch (which they rarely do in terms of trends). And the boss adds suspenders, cause France aint gonna think of THAT!

There you have it, the conception of the world's most hideous designer shoe. In reference to the quote from TDWP, I think that Prada is setting an irresponsible example for the fashion industry. It's more than likely that this Ultra Naff design will filter down through the layers of cool and someday descend into our realm of fashion and then who will we have to blame when the 14 years old that shop those kind of trends are walking around in rubber hooker boots? 

What's that you tell me? They already are? No silly, thats just the Supre sales staff.

ZING!

-Beatrice