If you watched Prada’s Fall/Winter 2026 runway show, you may have noticed something unusual. The cast was pared down to just 15 models — each walking four times — gradually transforming before the audience’s eyes. What initially appeared to be 60 distinct looks was, in fact, 15 outfits unravelling layer by layer.
Bella Hadid notably walked the runway four times, each appearance subtly altered as pieces were removed, reinforcing the collection’s rhythm of transformation. According to Raf Simons, the intention was to create 15 core looks styled into 60 variations on the same 15 women, a deliberate exploration of how clothing evolves through the day.
With each walk, a jacket shed, a layer dropped, a silhouette shifted. The act of dressing became literal. The show notes described it as “transforming through the day, through your clothes,” an embrace of plurality and the infinite facets of the Prada woman.
Within that framework, the footwear stood out sharply. Red kitten heels appeared frayed and weathered, their surfaces textured like worn brocade, encrusted with small crystal-like embellishments that felt more disruptive than decorative. Frayed trims, uneven edges, and surfaces that looked grazed by time suggested a life already lived.
These weren’t pristine runway pumps. They were destabilized, slightly wounded. Styled with burgundy stockings that pooled at the ankle, knee-high socks embroidered with miniature florals and dotted motifs, and patterned hosiery that bunched beneath cropped tailoring, the shoes resisted any notion of fantasy polish. Even classic black lace-up leather shoes were undone with rust-orange laces and playful socks, disrupting severity with whimsy. Ivory lace-up boots climbed sharply over the ankle, corseted tightly at the front, yet interrupted by scorched or animal-textured side inserts.
Elsewhere, sheer apron skirts hovered over chunky knits like protective membranes, organza wrapped around striped underlayers, and garments appeared mid-construction. Clothes were not presented as static objects, but as living forms; layered histories, personal and collective.
By the end, you realized you had not watched a sequence of separate outfits, but the slow reveal of garments in motion. Prada reframed not just styling, but the runway itself; proving that through precision layering and subtraction, complexity can emerge from conscious reduction. Editing rather than accumulation.
At Milan Fashion Week, Prada chose transformation over spectacle. Fifteen women. Sixty evolutions. One continuous act of dressing.
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