Remembering and Anticipating Prada Skincare
Prada skincare may be around the corner: the luxury fashion brand just signed a beauty licensing contract with L'Oréal, having severed ties with their former fragrance licensee, Puig. Reporting has been vague - whether they intend to develop something more than fragrance is yet to be revealed - but I suspect an expansion is on the horizon, if not in the immediate future.
If, indeed, Prada is entering the luxury cosmetics biz, I welcome it. I've been unbelivably fatigued with brands and launches lately, nothing has seemed interesting in a long time, but Prada is one of those brands that really has a strong profile that I care about. The brand exudes a kind of timeless yet contemporary coolness, avant-garde in a weirdly accessible way.
It wouldn't be the first time that Prada skincare hits the market. In 2000, they unveiled a short-lived but painfully cool line that, to my eyes, was ahead of the curve by miles. The packaging was designed by none other than the king of y2k aesthetics, Karim Rashid. Hermeneutically sealed baggies with mini, single-use packaging inside, delivered in very medical-looking boxes of thirty "doses". Fashion Cathy Horyn describes the packaging as condom-like, though I think that's selling it a little short.
It's clinical, sci fi-esque, and would honestly fit right in with the likes of Glossier and Pat McGrath's contemporary packaging concepts. I don't think these skincare products would look out of place at all on the shelves of current department stores or beauty spaces like the recently-unveiled Dover Street Market Parfums in Paris or Harmay's high-concept beauty stores in China. In fact, the line made enough of an impact that it's still being sold on the second-hand market through depop and ebay. Though, while it looks really fabulous, the environmental impact of something like this wouldn't fly today.
So what about lipstick, or eye shadow? Miuccia Prada famously doesn't wear makeup, so whether colour cosmetics are on the horizon remains to be seen. While I'm betting on skincare in the future, the beauty climate today is very different from the turn of the millennium, and I think Prada could really do something new and different with makeup.
So, what do you think? Will we be smearing our faces with Miuccia-approved skincare anytime soon? Would I be totally crazy to buy expired skincare just for The Aesthetic?