Prada’s bowling shirt is so ugly the New Yorker called wearing it an act of “performance art.”
The Frankenstein-style mash-up of garish prints, with a flame motif creeping up the bottom, costs $1,200 (R15 900) and happens to be the shirt of the summer, sported by actor Jeff Goldblum, rapper Pusha T and street-style bloggers at fashion weeks around the world.
If that price raises eyebrows, consider this: A padded, boxier version with a banana pattern costs $500 more.
Why would anyone pay $1,700 (R22 600) for it? Because the Prada banana is the stuff of legend, and if you didn’t know it, the shirt probably isn’t for you.
Miuccia Prada, the creative director, majority shareholder and co-chief executive officer, has been using her ugly-chic designs to market insider cool for decades.
From stiff, pea-green shift dresses to $700 sandals, Prada built a $3.5 billion business dressing people in clothes designed to make them look interesting or cool rather than rich or beautiful.
The items don’t always look like much to the untrained eye, but for the fashion set, wearing a look from the Prada catwalk sends a powerful signal: you’re in the know.
The banana motif harks back to a 2011 show that underlined Prada’s ability to set the fashion agenda.
It proposed an improbable mix of strictly tailored pencil skirts, ruffles and tropical prints, with smears of blinding highlighter hues.
Within a few months the collection had landed on the covers of more than a dozen top magazines, sported by the likes of actress Amanda Seyfried, singer Robyn and Vogue editor Anna Wintour – and banana earrings, leggings and blouses invaded retailers from London’s upmarket Harvey Nichols to the Topshop chain.
ROBERT WILLIAMS/ BLOOMBERG
