With Mrs P trading in the twinks for the twilighters every ten years, we picture the Prada catwalk of 2032
Ten years ago, Prada sent out Wiliam Dafoe, Adrien Brody, and Gary Oldman as part of its AW12 show. It felt regal and appropriately cinematic, producing the kind of imagery that archival Instagram profiles and High Fashion Twitter personas frequently return to. And as the lights dimmed on her most recent show, it became apparent that Miuccia may well have been following these accounts (on her very discreet burner), plotting to recreate that same intoxicating collision of fashion and pop culture for AW22.
So, exactly ten years to the season, she enlisted Jeff Goldblum, 69, and Kyle MacLachlan, 62, to vamp through an intergalactic runway, heralding the biggest moment of fashion month. But perhaps Miuccia is also growing weary of spindly boys traipsing up and down her catwalk every six months. While young flesh was on the menu this season, too, she knows that it sometimes takes a certain type of man (refined and wise) to match the gravitas of her designs. It’s the difference between a stag steering itself through a meadow and Bambi finding its legs in a puddle of amniotic fluid. Maybe that’s over-hamming it, though, having seen Goldblum’s trample.
Anyway, the whole thing got us thinking, with Miuccia swapping out the twinks for the twilighters every ten years, what would a 2032 runway look like? Who would the internet decree a Pra-daddy? Perhaps Che Diaz? Adam Sandler? Steve Buscemi? And how exciting to think… Who will get cancelled before then? Perhaps a gay for pay Stanley Tucci? Or an armpit-huffing Óscar Isaac? Below, we take a look at the slowly sagging faces of Hollywood to read the runes of a Prada runway set in the year 2032.
OSCAR ISAAC
If pictures of Óscar Isaac Hernández Estrada wearing a pair of brown corduroy slacks was enough to send millennials on Twitter into a puddle of fizzing slop, just imagine what would happen if he was wearing Prada? It may well kill the dad next door fantasy but once the actor’s curls have turned more salt than pepper, he might be in with a chance of getting Mrs Prada’s seal of approval.
FRANK OCEAN
Frank Ocean is 34 years old and in ten years’ time he will be 44 years old, making him a father. Now, the musician already has a deal with Prada – both as a face of the brand and a co-designer – but will Blonde go Grey? Will Ocean slink out of the shadows to give us a lap of Miuccia’s runway? Probably not!
ADAM DRIVER
Handsome in a characterful, strong-boned way, Driver is a shoe-in for a Prada cameo – eschewing conventional beauty for something a little more awkward, a little esoteric. He’s got to trade in the Gucci to be in for a shot, though. In fact, make like Goldblum and manifest an invitation with a rotation of bolshy, printed shirts and the revolving door in the label’s Beverly Hills outpost.
MADS MIKKELSEN
Hollywood’s go-to bad guy is the archetypal Prada zaddy – stony-faced and world-weary. Be it as a Bond villain or Rihanna’s strung-up bitch in “Bitch Better Have My Money”, Mikkelsen has been on both ends of a rough hand. He’s clean cut, of course, just like how Miuccia likes them, but this belies a wicked and unholy interior world... like a Danish pastry laced with Novichok nerve agent. If he could eviscerate you with a single glance, let it be in a Prada tux.
MICHAEL SHANNON
Already a bonafide fashion father, Michael Shannon starred in Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals as the callous and cynical Texan detective, Bobby Andes. There, he flexed just how hot and frightening he could be, always looking as though he was seconds away from exploding into a furious rant – about you, the world, or the suit he’s wearing.
KEANU REEVES
The internet’s boyfriend, Keanu Reeves, was the face of Saint Laurent’s AW19 campaign, but allegiances may have changed given that the actor was recently outed for his in depth knowledge of Italian tailoring – “He’s the one who taught me about Neapolitan tailoring, and Kiton and Borelli and proper stitching,” stylist Jeanne Yang told the Hollywood Reporter. While he cuts an imposing figure, his beauty is gentle, still, and willowy. And much like Miuccia, despite starring in one of the industry’s biggest franchises, he continually skirts the mainstream, constantly buffing its trappings.
RYUICHI SAKAMOTO
A spin of Prada’s official playlist will bring up the best of composer Ryuichi Sakamoto’s body of work, among David Bowie and Chopin. Despite appearing in campaigns for Kenzo and Opening Ceremony, Sakamoto says he’s not a fashion person – which makes him the perfect Prada muse. With a silver crop of curtained hair and a rotation of round, tortoise-shell glasses, Sakamoto clearly knows his way around the Fondazione, with the intellectual heft to throw behind Miuccia’s creations.
EMMA CORRIN
Another of Harry Lambert’s style progenies, on the red carpet Emma Corrin abstracts uber-masculine tailoring alongside a more off-kilter, fluid aesthetic – which feels quite Prada. As it stands, though, Corrin is the totemic Miu Miu muse, simultaneously irreverent and gorgeous. But age is doomed unto all of us, and in ten years’ time the actor will turn 36 years old, making them a spritely entrant into Miuccia’s pantheon of Prad-addies.
ADAM SANDLER
An unwitting and probably quite unbothered style icon, Adam Sandler was hawked for his sartorial prowess by all the major mags last year. He was “a mood” they’d repeat. Though he may look like he’s always taking the bins out, his rule-breaking approach to dressing overlaps with the Prada’s ugly-sexy signature. It’s also rumoured that Click is Miuccia’s favourite film. “I wish my remote could do that!,” she once confided in Vogue… apparently. So there you go!
TONY LEUNG
A fixture of international cinema, Tony Leung found fame as the recurrent protagonist of Wong Kar Wei’s filmmaking, namely as Mr Chow in the perennially stylish In The Mood for Love. Melancholic, unruffled, and mysterious, he’s known in China as “the man that can speak with his eyes” – which sounds exactly like the kind of slogan they would slap across a Prada advert.
STANLEY TUCCI
Not long after Andy chucked her Blackberry into that fountain, Stanley Tucci traded in his job with Miranda Priestly to go work for Miuccia. Yep, another of Mrs Prada’s beloved fanfictions sees Nigel move to Milan, where he becomes her second-in-command... her sous-chef, if you will. Rumour has it she starts reading aloud from this very Wattpad whenever Raf suggests they do another oversized sweater or chunky boot…
RALPH FIENNES
Even when spitting venomous incantations with most of his facial features shaved down to a nib, Ralph Fiennes exudes a stately kind of sex appeal. After all, Miuccia, a self-professed Slytherin, adores it when her men inhabit that grey space between good and evil. Dafoe, Brady, and Oldman looked like imposing, cinematic villains during Prada’s AW12 outing, did they not? And what with a mutual collaborator in Wes Anderson, perhaps a Fiennes tribute is soon on the cards.
STEVE BUSCEMI
Nobody is as old as Steve Buscemi however, who beyond Pulp Fiction, Armageddon, and Reservoir Dogs, has been immortalised in GIF form with his “How do you do, fellow kids?” line from 30 Rock. Dressed in a t-shirt reading “Music Band” and a backwards baseball cap, it’s high time for Buscemi’s fashion-aissance and for the public to realise just how cool he is. Yes, he may have spent a lifetime playing lunatics and misfits, but what is Prada without its beloved oddballs, anyway?
DENZEL WASHINGTON
Soon to star in Joel Coen’s Macbeth, double Oscar winner Denzel Washington is forever fine. Though he may be chasing 80 in ten years time, much like George Clooney or John Hamm, Washington has been cemented in the public imagination as canonically handsome. He’s now passed that baton to his son, too, who took the lead in Malcolm and Marrie wearing exclusively Prada.
MICHAEL WARD
Michael Ward got his big break after typing “want to be a model” into Google before being named the face of JD sports at 17 years old – through sheer force of will. Now officially recognised by BAFTA as a rising star of British cinema, Miuccia would do well to keep her eye on the upcoming Top Boy series, also starring Miu Miu fave Adwoa Aboah, and his prophetic search history.
JASON MOMOA
It’s a well known fact (...) within the industry that Miuccia used to sit in Prada HQ to binge-watch Game of Thrones on her iPad. “She’s always on that bloody thing,” Raf Simons told a reporter, “so I tell her ’Autumn Winter is coming’,” he giggled. It’s (perhaps) why she sat Maisie Williams front row at her SS22 show in Milan and why Jason Momoa would make an unexpected but logical Prada cameo.