Prada Puts the Skirt at the Centre of Milan Fashion Week

Prada gave skirts star billing at Milan Fashion Week, the Guardian reported on Tuesday, describing a collection that swerved the trouser and the dress to build its silhouette around the skirt. The Guardian framed the choice as characteristic of Miuccia Prada, whose personal uniform it described as a knee-length A-line or pleated skirt, most often worn with a plain sweater and kitten heels.

The paper tied the collection to the working partnership between Prada and the Belgian designer Raf Simons, which it said had once again spun gold for the fashion house. That pairing has been the central fact of the brand's recent runway seasons, and the Guardian's read is that the formula still holds.

Milan Fashion Week is the city's most visible export window of the year, and the foreign style press treats the Prada show as its anchor. Coverage of this kind is read in Lombardy less as cultural comment than as a demand signal: what the international press singles out in September tends to reappear in wholesale order books and in the region's contract manufacturing pipeline.