Milan ended with a humdinger — the news that Raf Simons is joining Prada as the brand’s co-creative director with Miuccia Prada. The rumor mill had buzzed about the possibility for some time (and WWD reported in late January that it may be happening). Now, the entire industry will be rapt to see how this remarkable creative partnership unfolds, starting with the designers’ first joint-effort collection, for spring 2021.
Despite Prada’s protestations otherwise, you don’t have to be Nostradamus to see that she and her husband/chief executive officer Patrizio Bertelli are readying the house for the moment, whenever it may come, that she decides she’s had enough and wants to scale back. But for the foreseeable future, the focus is on Prada and Simons committing to an unprecedented creative partnership. “In theory, it’s forever,” Prada said of its anticipated run. They both recognize their pairing as a momentous union, as indicated in the press release that trumpeted it. “It opens a new dialogue, between designers widely acknowledged as two of the most important and influential of today,” the statement read, while calling the move, “a questioning of creative conventions.”
It is surely that. Typically, we think of great creativity as emanating from

Follow WWD on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook.