Prada Silk Stripe Dress (AW2000)

This garment is in outstanding condition with no or minimal signs of wear. Any flaws present are negligible and do not detract from the overall appearance or integrity of the piece.

Prada was founded in Milan in 1913 by Mario Prada and his brother Martino as Fratelli Prada, originally selling English leather goods and luggage. On Mario’s death the house passed to his daughter Luisa, and in 1978 to her daughter, Miuccia Prada. Miuccia held a doctorate in political science and trained for five years as a mime, a background with no formal design training that underpins her reputation as fashion’s foremost intellectual. She introduced a black nylon bag in the early 1980s, redesigned in 1985 with the triangular logo that became the house’s signature - an industrial material standing in for leather, inverting what luxury was supposed to look like. Her first ready-to-wear collection followed in 1988, its severe, military-inspired tailoring later read by critics as a pointed subversion of Fascist Italy’s prescribed “feminine” dress codes for women. Through the 1990s she developed this into “ugly chic”: clashing prints and deliberately awkward proportions that unsettled ideas of good taste. Miuccia founded Miu Miu in 1992, and remained Prada’s sole creative director until 2020, when Raf Simons joined as co-creative director.

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As seen on the Autumn - Winter 2000 - 2001 runway, look 2

The same dress in a different colour was featured in a campaign for Vogue, photographed by Robert Wyatt