Fashion set get first glimpse of Prada-Schiaparelli Met exhibition... in Milan (but Miuccia's still not impressed)
Fashion insiders got a first look at the Prada-Schiaparelli exhibition that will go on show later this year at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Instead of the Big Apple, however, the preview, took place in Milan during fashion week.
It offered a glimpse of the Met's follow-up to the record-breaking Savage Beauty tribute to Alexander McQueen of last year.
'More differences than similarities': Mrs Prada said that her fellow fashion designer evoked the 'past' and that she didn't take direct inspiration from Schiaparelli's designs but from the period they were made in instead
The private event at the Palazzo Reale revealed the comparisons that will be drawn between the contemporary Miuccia Prada and the late Schiaparelli, who died in 1973.
They include insect motifs and use of the Indian sari, despite the heights of their careers being seven decades apart.
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The exhibition also includes video interview montages of the two designers by Australian film director Baz Luhrmann.
Despite the flattering tribute, Mrs Prada expressed surprise at the unlikely pairing when she told reporters, 'When I think of her, I think of the past’.
Quirky designs: Schiaparelli and Mrs Prada are famed for their use of eccentric motifs, such as insects, and their love of the Indian sari, which is seen here in an orange evening gown and a gold cocktail dress
However, she did concede that a ‘love for art and breaking the rules unite us’.
Though she turned up to view the presentation, Mrs Prada insisted that rather than replicating the works of Schiaparelli, she took inspiration from the era of her heyday instead.
'Every decade represents a moment in the life of a person,' she said.
Of the use of some of Schiaparelli’s idiosyncratic designs, Mrs Prada said that her own customers look for less unusual ideas because, compared to the stuffy society rules of the inter-war era, they have more freedom of expression generally.
'I'm interested in the limits of eccentricities, because too much eccentricity is ridiculous,' she said.
Meeting of minds: Head of both her family's eponymous label and Miu Miu, Miuccia Prada (left), and Thirties designer Elsa Schiaparelli (right) are considered two of the greatest creative minds of Italian fashion
There are similarities, however. Schiaparelli once used an Indian sari in a long, orange silk chiffon evening gown in 1935 and Mrs Prada used the material in a golden sari cocktail dress in 2004.
Curator Andrew Bolton also drew attention to the two designers' love of eccentric motifs with Schiaparelli, who died in 1973, using plastic bugs as buttons and a lobster print by Surrealist Salvador Dali in a gown for Wallis Simpson. Whereas Mrs Prada frequently uses quirky prints in her designs, such as lipsticks on a skirt and flaming rockets on shoes.
The full exhibition will be in held at the Met from May 10 to August 19.
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