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THE FALL COLLECTIONS / MILAN : Choice Pickings : Be She the Good-Time Girl or the Lowly Plain Jane, the Top Designers Made It Quite Possible for a Woman Who Knows Her Role to Put On Her Strongest Suit

March 11, 1996|MIMI AVINS | TIMES FASHION EDITOR

Small epaulets were sewn on the kind of warm jacket that used to be called a car coat at Prada, and sheer lilac, lime and mustard evening dresses were as revealing as anything at Versace's show. But there the similarities ended. Remember the hair clue? At Prada, the models hid theirs in scruffy little chignons. Under transparent dresses they wore woolly tights that looked about as sexy as a flannel granny gown.

Except for those nightgown-like dresses, some pony skin coats and three wonderfully shapely wool dresses, each in orange, camel or purple, Miuccia Prada has continued the thrift-shop look. New high-heeled Mary Jane's with flowers carved into antiqued brown leather completed the retro picture characterized by diner upholstery prints and flared leg pants.

Prada enthusiasts will tell you the clothes are easy to wear. A cashmere sweater and an A-line skirt do have an uncomplicated appeal, a subtlety some women intuitively understand. For those who don't get the less accessible hallmarks of the Prada cult, the nauseating colors, stiff silhouettes and tacky prints, the firm has inspired much debate. The Prada aesthetic represents rebellious fashion or anti-fashion or fashion's next wave or fashion reeking of irony. Its popularity proves a PhD in the theory of style as a prerequisite for getting dressed isn't too much to ask of many women who seem to enjoy the hype.

Next: Paris.

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