highlikefashion

The entrance to the Prada headquarters has all the charm of a Cold War checkpoint. An unmarked window and a sterile security gate sit within a short tunnel, whose low ceiling frames the grey courtyard beyond in widescreen. Into this courtyard a car pulls up, sleek and black and anonymous, and a passenger dismounts from the rear: Miuccia Prada in a dark three-quarter-length coat, standing in such perfect profile that the scene is begging to be photographed. She pauses by the end of her Carsten Holler tube - the art installation that always gets mentioned in these interviews, that burrows down through the floor of her office, twists through the Miu Miu design studio and brings those who choose to ride it (including Miuccia herself) down to earth here in the car park, where it looks quite ordinary, like the end of a slide in a children’s playground. I find myself waiting to see whether she will get on her hands and keens and start crawling up it. This wouldn’t be entirely inconsistent with her behavior as a designer.