Prada, AW14, Milan.

Each season Miuccia’s Prada collection sits within a specific colour palette, within a certain range of fabrics, plays with a certain range of design details and usually poses some new styling questions as well.

In terms of design details this season was often about highlighting the edges of garments, and the edges of design details. This was evident through the use of metallic and contrast bindings that followed lapel shapes, created fine straps, or outlined the locations of panel lines. The opposite of this was to almost blur the edges of the details by using fur, hair and wool to create thick, bulky, hairy edges on seams, yokes, panel lines and patch pocket edges. Where binding creates a crisp definite edge, using these softer finishes did the opposite, making some details look big and bulky.

From a construction perspective this is no mean feat to create details like this. Sewing metallic leather binding onto organza is a potential recipe for disaster and would require just the right combination of sewing machine set-up, needle and thread. Sewing machine needles for leather actually have a tiny blade on the end that cuts the leather as it penetrates. This is sometimes referred to as a “chisel point”.

To use binding as straps also requires precise control of measurements so that the straps do not pull at the garment in the wrong way. Perhaps some sort of tape or thin fabric strap could be used inside the binding to ensure that the binding did not stretch or sag and would retain the desired measurement.

One of the main styling questions posed this season was in the use of an organza dress as a layering piece. In this collection organza dresses were used in a variety of colours layered over and under knitwear, over geometric print underwear and under oversized tailoring.

The collection was kept cohesive by the colour palette and the way that the binding and edging details were ultimately extensions of the prints and pattern cutting used in the collection. Geometric prints were defined in some garments and then echoed in others through the use of the contrast binding. The softer detail edges were also often echoed in other prints which were given a blurry watercolour treatment or rendered with a halftone pattern.

Images from Vogue.co.uk»