In Conversation: Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons

Even the co-creative directors at Prada think there's too much fashion.

- Robin Givhan

MIUCCIA PRADA, 77, AND RAF SIMONS, 58, have devoted their professional lives to making clothes, racking up enough hours that, if they were punching a clock at a nine-to-five gig, they could easily slip into retirement.

Between them, they have shaped the way we think about age, beauty, even aprons. They have also ruffled feathers and offended sensibilities.

As co-creative directors of the label that bears her name, Prada and Simons work side by side in the family business that she, with husband Patrizio Bertelli, transformed into a global conglomerate, which today includes Miu Miu, the brand she founded in 1993 and oversees alone. The announcement in February 2020 that the two designers would work together was surprising at first. Prada was a child of Italian privilege who reluctantly entered the fashion world. Simons is a son of the Belgian working class who founded his namesake menswear company in 1995. He went on to serve as creative director at Jil Sander (which Prada Group once owned), Christian Dior, and Calvin Klein. She gave women nylon backpacks and ugly chic; he offered men graphic bomber jackets, New Order references, and hand-painted parkas.

People—you, me, the internet—have wondered how two strong-willed creative minds work together. The question says a lot about how we think at this moment: that there is no middle ground between lockstep and mud fight. But six years in, they are looking like fashion's elder statespeople.