When Miuccia Prada invented Ugly Chic The year was 1996...

««[Miuccia’s] clothing is ultimately about discomfort – aesthetic, ideological, somewhat ephemeral; it is ephemeral because the ugliness Prada provokes with this season becomes the new beautiful», wrote Alexander Fury in the 2014 essay, Miuccia Prada: Master of “Ugly”, referring to a collection, Prada’s SS96, that became a turning point in the history of the brand. 1996 was a defining moment for both the Prada identity and the fashion industry: it’s one of those moments that unconsciously shaped fashion for years to come. On the final day of Fashion Week in 1995—just when fashion editors were off to see Prada — came a bomb scare in the company’s headquarters. I echo Amy Splinder, a New York Times critic: will they skip the show? Or risk it all to find out what Prada is going to do next season? After an hour or so, the show space was declared safe by Italian explosive experts. Journalists were making lighthearted jokes about Prada’s competitors making the call: «I’m sure it was someone who’s very jealous».

If Miuccia Prada has done one thing, it is not to make ugly appealing—but to shift our perception of beauty and good taste. Fashion collections like Banal Eccentricity are never made on the basis of whim nor of camp but of clear & steady deliberation. It is Ms. Prada’s own way of subverting the concept of what is deemed ‘luxurious’ by introducing elements of ordinary – reshaping our ideas of aesthetics, and what we constitute as both ‘ugly’ and ‘beautiful’.