OMA and Prada create domestic bliss
Rem Koolhaas’ firm built a decidedly homely setting for Prada’s Men’s and Women’s Fall/Winter 2017 show
What words would you think of when picturing a collaboration between one of the world’s leading architectural practices and one of world’s foremost fashion houses? “Simple” and “domestic” would probably rank a long way down your list, yet that is how Prada is characterising its latest venture with Rem Koolhaas’ AMO studio.
AMO, the research and design studio within Koolhaas’ better known OMA architectural firm, oversaw the interiors for Prada’s Men’s and Women’s Fall/Winter 2017 show in Milan earlier this month.
For their twice yearly Milan runway shows, many prominent fashion houses commission high-concept productions, placing their garments in highly immersive, cinematic settings. In contrast AMO and Prada felt they should “to go back to basics, to abandon the construction of hyper-realistic and fully immersive sets in favour of a modest and domestic design.”
This domesticity still allowed for a few design flourishes. AMO opted for some distinctly nostalgic-looking terrazzo and formica motifs worked in alongside sombre wood panelling, sofas and even a bed or two.
The set, known as Continuous Interior, complemented the clothes, which also seemed to hark back to an era of nylon and Naugahyde, while also providing a kind of visual punctuation to the show’s snaking procession.
For more on fashionable innovation in another European city order London Uprising here; for more on contemporary interiors get Room.