I would have been around 15, and I found the designs so visually arresting that I felt they needed to be framed, placed somewhere where I could always look at them. I remember being taken aback by what fashion could be, thinking why has no one done this before.<\/em> Which, of course, is what great art often makes you think \u2013 how could something this good not have been thought of yet \u2013 why didn\u2019t I think of that.<\/p>\n James Jean, the artist whose illustrations adorn the full skirts and silk pyjamas of the collection (as well as the murals in the campaign), creates images which are as beautiful as they are dark.<\/p>\n There\u2019s something fairy tale about them, and the luscious curves and lines of the designs used in this collection had something dreamlike about them, but dreamlike and dark, mysterious and slightly occult. It\u2019s the sort of play that Miuccia Prada does like no one else, the sense that there\u2019s something else being said beneath the clothes\u2019 surface.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had to work very quickly, so there\u2019s no time to be precious \u2013 usually, I spend a lot of time and effort polishing and perfecting my work, so this fast paced collaboration forces me to loosen up\u201d, James said of his work with Prada in an interview with Dazed Digital<\/a>. It\u2019s striking that working with fashion actually influences the artist\u2019s<\/em> process, meaning that the artist themselves produces work in a new way, not just the fashion label. Truly exchange.<\/p>\n James Jean has just collaborated with Prada again, for Prada\u2019s first ever Resort collection earlier this year. Interesting that when the brand takes a step in a new direction, they nod to the archives. A typical Miuccia Prada genius detail.<\/p>\n SS14 had a darkness about it too, but it was more to do with power than it was to do with mystery. Anger, even. The collection featured blown up portraits, in different styles, from graffiti to photorealism, all featuring women of different ethnicities.<\/p>\n The sets, as well, featured murals by artists El Mac, Mesa, Stinkfish, Jeanne Detallante, Gabriel Specter and Pierre Mornet, blown up in scale, and all around the themes of femininity, representation, power and multiplicity. It was amazing to me that clothes could make statements so loudly without even speaking.<\/p>\n I think Prada did then what Maria Grazia Chiuri tried to do at Dior a few years later, with her \u2018We should all be feminists\u2019 t-shirts, but far more powerfully, and far more subtly. The SS14 collection was an incredibly successful collection, commercially as well as artistically, might I add. Vogue\u2019s show report says of this collection, \u201cA really clever fashion designer doesn’t just make you want some of the collection; she makes you want to chuck out your entire wardrobe and begin again.\u201d And it\u2019s true. That\u2019s how I felt about this collection, when, as I student,<\/p>\n I poured and poured over the amazing coats with these strikingly different faces emblazoned across them: this \u2013 this is how I want to dress now.<\/p>\n![\"Slow](\"https:\/\/www.arenamartinez.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/slow-fashion-made-in-spain-arena-martinez-prada-miuccia-pradas-artists-1.jpg\")
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