Prada Knapsack-ification and Outsider Knowledge

BUZZWORD of the week: prada knapsack-ification 

Pharrell’s recent appointment at Louis Vuitton Mens still has the fashion public (mostly me on Twitter) up in arms. The community online continues to debate the ethics of fashion institutions appointing based on merit (which is questionable, because since when was fashion fair?) and celebrity culture. He hasn’t debuted his work for the fashion house as of yet, but will later this month. I remain hopeful that his first collection for the fashion house will usher in some very thoughtful High Fashion Twitter arguments and discourse (very important to me). I’m certain that very discourse will lead me to make an impassioned YouTube video in his defense and I look forward to this. 

I don’t think fashion is ever simple, so my perspective on his appointment is: let’s wait until we see the clothes, the show, the direction of the house. But I do think his appointment is a reflection of a larger conversation to be had in fashion about how “outsider knowledge” can be valuable. Important to note that Pharrell is hardly an outsider to the fashion world, having collaborated with the most established fashion houses on earth including LV and Chanel, but he doesn’t have a technical background in fashion design, which has led to the fashion community discrediting him as a worthy Creative Director of Louis Vuitton. For me, his background does the opposite. His background reminds me of a more artistic and colorful telling of another “outsider” dominating in fashion now named Miuccia Prada. She has no technical fashion skills (does not sew, cut, pattern make, drape, or even sketch) to offer her team, but uses her understandings of dressing women and relating to different communities to dictate themes to her team.

Ingrid Loschek writes about how Miuccia Prada took over Prada after studying political science extensively, and then entering her family’s fashion business. She was entirely uninterested in fashion, but in the 1980’s developed a medium sized utilitarian bag which reflects a significant change in fashion. This was a black rucksack covered in pockets, and they made the bags in a parachute factory. This bag acted as a symbol for city dwelling and challenged her family’s history as a leather craftsmanship company. Loschek says “Philosophy became product”— and mentions that the house began placing the triangle iconic Prada logo on the pieces. This moves their products away from conventional connotation of luxury and into a new more modern construction of luxury. This symbolic meaning of fashion is the nature of fashion currently. Loschek says “the rucksack became a symbol of urban mobility” as a “gender free prestige object”. Mrs. Prada was able to be innovative in bringing in tech-fabric to develop a new style of bag that reflected the spirit of urban living, which positioned the bag to be a coveted item. 

To me, Prada’s contributions reveal a shift in the fashion zeitgeist reflects the power of spirit in fashion and the value of outsider knowledge. Would someone with a conventional fashion background have the foresight to invent a bag like this? Or did, perhaps, Mrs. Prada’s background in politics and understanding human relationships, power dynamics, etc. lead her to this form of symbolic sartorial signaling? 

This “outsider knowledge” allows designers to connect better with their customer bases which include people not at all involved in fashion. A background outside of fashion can serve a community of buyers whose lives exist outside of the fashion space, as their other interest and needs are met by the clothes they need for daily living. Outsider knowledge can help fashion think in novel and unique ways, and resolve issues that “fashion people” may not have considered solving. Fashion is built around so many complex individuals of such vastly different backgrounds, it is more important than it ever has been to include outside perspectives to work collectively to resolve the world’s problems through storytelling and practical design.

My hope is that the fashion community remembers the Prada knapsack and the value and purpose of listening to people who may not have had access or entrance to the fashion space, and that we can be open to these perspectives, especially from such a universal major fashion house. This way, I’ll see less reductive horrible hot-takes on TikTok and Instagram. 

xx