Bella Hadid walked for Prada’s tough-turned-feminine collection at Milan Fashion Week while stars accumulated to watch the showcase.
Miuccia Prada, 76, has long been revered for her ability to anticipate fashion’s next move. The autumn/winter 2026 womenswear show, presented with her co-creative director Raf Simons at the Fondazione Prada museum during Milan Fashion Week, undoubtedly demonstrated that instinct once again.
Fans of the Milanese house tend to share an appreciation for intellectual design; clothing that feels like a mirror to current culture; but still beautiful to wear.
This season, Prada delivered both. Utility, embellishments and subtle dishevelment merged with bursts of colour suggests AW26 will be filled with unapologetic and subversive glamour.
While last season explored workwear as a “response to the overload of contemporary culture”, riffing on military uniforms and officer shirts, this collection continued the utilitarian thread but elevated it into something more elevated and ornate.
Wax barn jackets, car coats and knitted quarter-zips were reworked and layered over organza skirts and embellished dresses, transforming practical wear into evening propositions.
One look paired a cropped yellow cape-jacket with a navy double-breasted coat and sheer layered skirt, styled with knee-length stockings and pointed lace-up pumps.
Elsewhere, a grey utility jacket was thrown over a floral knee-length skirt with an evening clutch, reinforcing Prada’s ongoing fascination with the tension between refinement and functionality.
Knee-length stockings, already spotted on several London Fashion Week runways, appeared repeatedly throughout, cementing their status as a cross-city trend.
Styled with pointed kitten heels – a Prada signature – and knee-length skirts, they gave the collection a prim, almost schoolgirl inflection, albeit subverted with more slouchy silhouettes.
The hourglass silhouette, increasingly visible this season, was also firmly present among the Nineties slips.
Cinched anoraks and nipped-in evening dresses with open necklines sculpted the waist without feeling overtly corseted. Even bulkier outerwear retained shape, often belted or cut to subtly emphasise the torso.
Organza and tulle – another AW26 trend – were used liberally, layered over skirts and dresses nodding to the Nineties sheer dressing.
Straight, up-and-down shift dresses were veiled in translucent fabric, sometimes embellished with dripping gem details or floral motifs, giving the effect of something more romantic than the usual, tough Prada runway.
The colour palette was another interesting element to the collection. It swung between muted khaki, navy and grey and sudden jolts of neon lime, sky blue and saturated red.
Pops of pink flashing from shoes or turned-up cuffs cut through otherwise subdued looks, cementing another trend that seems prevalent on this fashion month’s runways.
Among this show’s styling were echoes of the brand’s younger sibling, Miu Miu, particularly in the shorter hemlines, knee socks and subtly awkward-but-cool proportions.
Short knitted scarves – worn high and slightly askew – conjured the so-called “frazzled English woman” aesthetic that proliferated on TikTok, while crumpled shirts and windswept hair added to the messy, dishevelled “brat girl” look of the show.
Straps were styled slipped from shoulders, hems appeared layered and almost haphazardly tailored, yet nothing felt accidental.
Prada and Simons’s exploration of disorder was clearly deliberate in how women dress when intellect, emotion and practicality intersect.
While Hadid was walking on the runway, stars were also sitting front row, including actress Carey Mulligan, 40, an ambassador of the label – who recently wore a fluid satin navy blue slip dress on the BAFTA red carpet – wearing a cream ruffled blouse and polka dot cravat with a black overcoat.
Fellow actress Sarah Pidgeon, 29, who recently inhabited the role of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy in FX’s Love Story also stepped out in a loose V-neck taupe sweater vest and a knee-length, butter yellow fringed skirt.
While TikTok star Charli D’Amelio, 21, also sat front row wearing an oversized slate grey blouson jacket, a high necked chocolate brown T-shirt and cream hot pants.
