Prada - SS26
Prada - Spring/Summer 2026 Menswear Collection
By Raf Simons & Miuccia Prada
This was the first Prada show since moving to its cavernous Fondazione, where the space was offered undressed: The only adornment was 30 or so shaggy, flower-shaped rugs. Before the show began we listened to birdsong. The first look comprised a white camp-collar shirt with a washed-out sunrise illustration worn over a baby blue turtleneck (an archetypal Prada styling), plus our first glimpse of the elastic-hem bloomer short shorts—complete with popper pocket for stashing essentials—that would return episodically. Simons said these related to the designers’ return to childish innocence: More cynically, you could see these bloomers becoming menswear’s next-season equivalent to Miu Miu’s recent jewel-embroidered panties.
Both designers suggested that this collection was in part about disassembling, simplifying, and reducing to the essential, what they called “a change of spirit.” Prada said it was a counterpoint to “useless complicated ideas—a lot for the sake of doing a lot. Also, this doesn’t mean that doing less is easier. To do the perfect cotton trouser requires more effort than something more complicated.”
The paradigm piece Mrs. Prada referred to—flat-front crease-leg pants delivered in multiple flavors of sugary pale pastel—was just one among many. There were tailored jackets (both single- and double-breasted), stripe-flashed fitted tracksuits, belted blousons, collared cabans, and raglan-shoulder minimalist bikers in shiny vinyl or crumpled leather (beautiful). Macs and boat-neck knit sweaters were also quintessential house-touched examples of their type: Prada prep.
Accessory-wise, there were tubular leather duffel bags and a broad selection of house nylon backpacks and day bags whose usual all-black palette was replaced with a series of outdoorsy two-tone combinations. These dialogues of color echoed down to the Gommino-sole driving shoes, part of a similarly paradigmatic footwear offering: plimsoll sneakers, leather oxfords, sliders, sandals, and flip-flops.
There were some tricksier pieces mixed in beneath the glossily colored, centrifuge-fringe rattan hats. These included pullover smocks in shirting cotton that came striped or patterned with more naive Daisy Age florals and knit sweaters with cinched waistlines and buttoned pockets that mirrored those of the first-look bloomers. A submariner’s olive sweater fringed with woolen tassels and epaulet, flap-pocket shirts that fell to skirt length were both military paradigms pacified through design.
A rare voice in the mostly abstract soundtrack’s soundscape intoned, “We’re justified, and we’re ancient” over some ambient slide guitar—a message from the KLF’s Mu Mu (not Miu Miu) land utopia dating from the ’90s. There were badges and T-shirts with washed-out graphics that seemed souvenirs from other utopian-sounding locales: Lover’s Lake, Last Swim, Peak’s End.
Source: Vogue Runway / www.vogue.com
Written by: Luke Leitch
Video: Prada / YouTube