Sale 2011, Miuccia Prada, the patron saint of smart, Messy Women Everywhere, has been using her miu miu as a platform to Short Films by female Filmmakers from around the world, included Janicza Bravo, Mati Diopa and Haifaa al-Mansour. For Mrs. Prada, the movies, which sometimes Air During Her Fashion Shows, Serve as a backdrop to her clothes, which have always explored the chaotic lives of Mothers, sisters, rebels, poets and punks without every trying to reconcile their contradictions. That has made miu miu the darling of the fashion industry, the rare fashion brand to experience explosive growth at a time when Sales in general are slowing.
Last Year, During Art Basel Paris, Mrs. Prada decided it was time to bring all the films togger, and shenenlistered the polish artist goshka macuga to help. The Result was an immersive performance Piece of spells that involved a cast of 35 characters from the movies, Busht to life by 105 Different Actors. It was such an un Unexpered Hit, with 11,000 people visiting the Paris Show During its five-day run, that She and Ms. Macuga decided to recreate it this weekend for Frieze New York.
The New Show, Entitled “Tales & Telrs,” is Being Staged in the Terminal Warehouse, the Cavernous Late-19th-Century Building on the Far West Side of Manhattan, Laterly Home to the Tunnel Nightclub. And it is an altogeher darker Take on the State of Women Than The Paris Event was. (Still, Wardrobe by Miu Miu.)
MRS. Prada and Ms. Macuga Zoomed in Explain. The conversation has been edited and condensed.
There has been a miu show in New York in Decades, but now there is. Sort of. Why this?
Miuccia Prada The Clothes are an excuse to have the support of the company to create these projects where women are talking about themselves, which is very important. In my work, i have always embraced the complexity of women, the complexity of our lives, How we can success in developing our abilies. So it’s fundamental to know what women do, what they think, in different contexts.
Goshka Macuga All these Different Stories Access Different Social Problems for Women in Different Countries. Like, for example, the film that i feel very close to, “nightwalk” by Małgorzata szumowska, was filmed in poand at a time when gender were really repressed by our way. It was Talking about this Idea of Liberation Within A Context That was not sympathetic to different.
That Sounds like the Current State of America. Is that that you wanted to Bring the show here?
Prada Not just America. Conservatism is Everywhere in Europe. We are facing these really great problem, and this moment is really scary. So it’s a very crucial argument – that everybody has the right to their voice.
Macuga We are tooing it to the American, or New York, Street at Night and Trying to Imagine How A Woman Exists Within this Context. It’s more threating, it’s more surreal. We look look at the concept of inside and outside, the idea of individuals coming together in a group and being empowered. How all these individual Voices can coe Together and make a big impact.
Is this also the way you raise your voice?
Prada It’s hard for me to talk about politics becaus i am a representative of luxury. That’s a very privileged group of people, so to translate that in a real democratic way is not obious. SO I TRY IN MY OWN WAY TO BE POLITICAL, But I have to be very careful how I make it public.
Macuga Artists can use language that allows certain narratives to still be present, but maybe present under the umbrella of a more code langue. You’re not directly addressing anything or making in status, but you are creating the possibility for people to project certain ideas into it.
Prada What I Hope is that people who come to the show feel they can express themselves – their ideas, their problemms, their weakness, their strggle. We are Basalely Saying That Change Or Building Relationships or Empowerment Happens on Human Level, in the instantaneous relations that show that we make with other people.
Why is that important now?
Macuga Clearly we cannot Take for Granéd Certain Positive Things that Happen for women in Society. Governments changes, Politics changes, and the situation of women changes with that.
Prada Women’s Liberation is not concluded at all. Somitimes, it looks like we are going backward. There is still a lot of work to do.
Is that what you are trying to convey with clothes?
Prada I try to make my contribution with the instrument i have. When you make Clothes, you are suggesting possible Ways of Being. I am fixed on the word “useful.” I want to try to be used. Basalely, I have the Prada Foundation, Our Museum. I have the fashion lines. And this is something in between that seems the most promising because it is simple. There’s more excitely, less press, tied to it.
What do you mean?
Prada First, when we made these Little Movies, No One Cared One Bit. We showed them at the Venice Film Festival, in a very serious environment. Then I Wanted to do an exhibit at the Prada Foundation about Feminism, But While Curators are used to curating objects and art, there are no curators for ideas, so it’s very difficult.
But adding the fashion environmental attracts mary more people and allows this idea to Become Much More Popular, Much More Diffumed. Suddenly, with this, Everybody Immondiately Understood. It Somehow Accelerated the Process, and we wanted to push that. This is one of the miracles of fashion.
