Things Miuccia Prada Has Made You Wear Without You Realising

The ladylike Prada powerhouse has made you wear a lot in your time. Let us remind you of what....

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by Pandora Sykes |
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She's clever is Miuccia Prada. Season after season she'll show something you never thought could look good, and even if you're not convinced immediately, it's rare that you won't realise it's made its way into your wardrobe six months later. Plus, it's not just anyone who has two immensely successful fashion labels - Miu Miu and Prada - as well as a film named after them. No, no.

Today's Prada show did nothing to dispel the myth that Miuccia is a dab hand at doing something so wrong it's right. You could say that the overall theme was 'yer Nan's house' - all mismatched paisley, clashing lace, mahogany brown leather, dress coats and pop socks (yep, pop socks), but, you guessed it, it worked, in a female-version-of-Jarvis-Cocker, kind of way. Get ye to the M&S hosiery section!

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Platform sandals and oversized collars had a 70s-revival-in-the-90s feel about them that'll no doubt have us hooked, and even the snake-skin mules seem strangely alluring. Suddenly Victoria Beckham wearing a brown suede dress in the 2 become 1 video is seeming a likely style pin-up for SS15.

 

But what else has Miu Miu herself (that's her nickname, fyi) made you wear? Er, actually quite a lot. You're way more ladylike than you gave yourself credit for.

A nylon backpack

The nylon black backpack of 1995 is credited as 'the first ever it bag'. Minimalist and utilitarian - in that typically '90s kinda way - it commanded a price tag of $495 and is still an asset, almost 20 years on. You can find them on eBay and Etsy now.

 

The full skirt

I bet you feel really original right now in your prettily patterned midi-length full skirt from Topshop. Everyone else is too busy doing slimline leopard print pencils and sporty minis, right? Sorry. You've got Miuccia to thank for that, rather than your own style nous. Miuccia is a skirt addict - 'the skirt is my t-shirt' she once said - and a Prada collection isn't a Prada collection without one. See Lara Stone, spoting from the SS08 collection.

 

Black, white and red florals

Remember the summer before last, when all you were wearing was punchy pop-art florals? It was like the floral re-birth. They weren't watercolour florals, or darkly sexy intricate Erdem florals, they were big and bold tri-coloured fuss-free florals - no doubt a ripple effect from Miuccia's floral-strewn SS12 collection. Red, white and black florals were printed on coats, bags and shoes too - as modelled by Miranda Kerr's in her breakout summer as a streetstyle extraordinaire.

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Brothel creeper flatforms

You swore you'd never wear thick, crepe-soled brothel flatform creepers, right? Well, that's the thing about all things Miuccia starts: where you think you're never going to follow, you do. Prada's crepe-soled creeper brogues were absolutely everywhere in SS11. Whether they were tan leather, with an orange or grey striped sole, or black leather with a blue and white sole, they were an instant hit and inspired a near instantaneous wave of flatform brothel creeper and loafer purchases.

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**The pout print **

Who hasn't owned a lipstick print skater dress in the last 14 years? You've got Pra-ha-hada to thank for that. Their hugely successful pout-print skirt first flirted its way down the catwalk in pleated form for SS10, before being re-birthed as a dress over a decade later, just in time for a cuter-than-cute Elle December 2011 with Michelle Williams. Proof of Prada's timeless relevancy is in the pouty pudding: I would totally wear that pleated skirt and camel poloneck right now and Anna Della Russo wore a lipstick-print top just yesterday for the Gucci AW14 show.

 

Huge zany sunglasses

Once upon a time, sunglasses were functional. Just to shade the sun and that. What a boring time that was. Since then we've found ourselves buying '40s-style cat-eye glittery sunglasses (Miu Miu, but still) and enormously oversized sunglasses that our mother would still class as 'novelty'. Show us a pair of compact Oakley sunglasses now and we'd laugh in your face. Why did this happen? Because we saw these gigantic curly swirly Prada sunglasses for SS11 (look! She has matching hair!) and by osmosis, all we wanted was a statement pair of sunnies with some major detailing.

 

Follow Pandora on Twitter @pinsykes

Pictures: Jason Lloyd-Evans

This article originally appeared on The Debrief.

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