Prada & Miu Miu @ The Great Gatsby

Miuccia Prada has collaborated with Baz Luhrmann and legendary costume designer Catherine Martin to create a bespoke collection of over 40 unique Miu Miu and Prada cocktail and evening dresses, inspired by selected runway looks from the last 20 years. The glittering re-imagining of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s jazz-age classic stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan and Tobey Maguire. In the film the costumes take a leading role: shimmering silk gowns embroidered with crystal and sequins; velvets, furs and dancing fringing; flickering shades of emerald, jade, topaz and gold. In the pivotal ball segments, set in Gatsby’s lavish fairytale mansion, Prada and Miu Miu designs steal the scene. A golden Prada party gown laden with crystals, worn by Mulligan’s Daisy Buchanan, is the pièce de résistance.

Luhrmann was the creative consultant for the recent exhibition, Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada’s Impossible Conversations at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the friendship goes back 16 years to when Miuccia Prada collaborated on Leonardo DiCaprio’s suit for Luhrmann’s 1996 film, Romeo + Juliet. The Prada Great Gatsby collaboration encapsulates the cross-disciplinary spirit of Prada’s ongoing dialogue within the worlds of fashion, art, film and architecture. “Baz and Miuccia have always connected on their shared fascination with finding modern ways of releasing classic and historical references from the shackles of the past,” explains Martin. “This connection is central to our relationship with Miuccia Prada on The Great Gatsby, and has connected our vision with hers. In the same way Nick Carraway reflects on a world that he is within and without, we have tried to create an environment that the audience will be subconsciously familiar with, yet separated from."

“Our collaboration with Prada recalls the European flair that was emerging amongst the aristocratic East Coast crowds in the 1920s” says Martin. “The fashions of the time saw the development of a dichotomy between those who aspired to the privileged, Ivy League look of wealthy Long Island and those who were aspiring to European glamour, sophistication and decadence. Our collaborations with Prada reflect the collision of these two aesthetics.”