Prada's Fall 2021 Menswear Collection Is About 'an Intimate and Personal Wish for Contact'

The collection marks the first complete menswear collaboration between Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons.

When Prada unveiled its Spring 2021 collection last September, it marked the official debut of Raf Simons as co-creative director alongside Miuccia Prada herself. But as highly-anticipated as that fashion moment was, it’s entirely possible Simons’s first menswear collection for the Italian brand was even more so — after all, few people idolize Mr. Simons quite like the menswear set.

And so it was that the Prada Fall 2021 menswear collection set social media buzzing over the long weekend here in the States, (thankfully) managing to temporarily replace the impending Presidential inauguration, the ongoing Covid-19 crisis and an attempted insurrection as the topic du jour. There was much to discuss: a set consisting of multiple rooms covered in different colored materials like furs (promised, by the way, to be upcycled) which hearkened back to Simons’s floral-covered Dior couture debut; dance breaks from typically stoic male models; another Q&A from “mom and dad,” aka Simons and Prada.

But whatever the Twitterati’s interpretation of the collection may be, it all came back to “an intimate and personal wish for contact, our urge to exchange and relate,” according to show notes released by Prada. Details were intended to evoke different sensory experiences, like a use of color or texture that was as fun for the eyes as one might imagine they would be against the body. There was a play with negative space to create the iconic Prada logo in its absence, triangles created with an extra coat closure at the neck or removed from knitwear. There was contrast in silhouette, too, between oversized coats and jackets and tight-fit one pieces.

Oh, and if you’re looking for the next must-have Prada accessory, it’s a safe bet folks will be clamoring for the bright leather gloves with pouches attached to the side.

See the Prada Fall 2021 menswear collection in the gallery below: