Prada spring/summer 2026 shows you what to pack for vacation
Raf Simons and Miuccia Prada are closing in on their five anniversary as co-designers of the Milanese brand, making them one of the few stable voices in fashion
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WHAT DO YOU PACK for a vacation? It’s a question those fortunate enough among us making the annual mid-year exodus to Europe are currently pondering in front of their suitcase. Tossing up between short shorts and knee knockers? Would you have space for a light, swishy trench coat for the summer showers? Over the weekend in Milan, Prada’s spring/summer 2026 collection had some ideas.
We’re closing in on the five-year anniversary (this September) since Belgian designer Raf Simons joined forces with Miuccia Prada as co-creative director of her 112-year-old family-owned brand. As fashion’s favourite duo and thinkers, the pair have so far come up with 20 collections that have distilled their sensibilities of utilitarianism, romance, and, most importantly, humour. In this regard, the Milanese brand is one of the few in fashion that can create and propel trends – the kind of work that permeates culture itself.
Watching on from the Esquire office, synthy music along with the sound of the shore, motorboats, cars and skateboards accompanied the 56-look collection, evoking the atmosphere between sand and bitumen, much like the Croisette. Indeed, the in-between space from your car to the beach is where you’d find jackets and big shirts haphazardly thrown over swimwear. The result is a mismatched nonchalance – often the closest thing you can find, the vibe: you don’t care. The show opened with a pair of khaki bloomers featuring safari pockets with a crisp white camp collar shirt over a tight high-neck top. Knits with gaping bateau necklines were long enough to cover the rolled-up shorts. Other times it would just be a long striped shirt.
Appropriate footwear for the beach is another quagmire. Again, you’d jam your feet into a pair of sneakers – whatever’s closest and most convenient. But you’d be pleased to hear that Simons and Prada have committed to showing the type of footwear you’d actually find near a body of water. Brown leather sandals fastened to the big toe; canvas rubber-soled sneakers; flip-flops (no longer controversial); driving shoes and moccasins, the soles of which were shaved razor thin. Shredding for the beach, perhaps, it seems like our footwear is (also) on Ozempic.
At their best, Simons and Prada share the same humour and taste for the utilitarian. A polo shirt fringed at the hem, for instance, looks as though you tucked a towel under your jumper. Also evident was Prada’s famed use of nylon, trench coats in sun-bleached neutrals acted as top layers to tamper the obviously nautical looks. A one-piece shirt in the crunchy synthetic was all Mrs. Prada; its adolescent light blue sailor print was all Simons. The latter felt especially ’60s twee. The cone-shaped bucket hats in bleached white rattan also added to the space-age feel. A favourite headwear style of the duo’s, its stiff correctness was disrupted with other hats featuring its webbing untangling at the edges. Especially on a look featuring a trench coat, the hat feels every bit the deranged Hitchcock blonde.
Although summer sees us peeling off layers, it isn’t a season for a fashion brand to skimp on outerwear. Proceedings drew tighter in shrunken leather jackets, with sleeves only going halfway down the forearm, as if for that of a teenager. Outerwear is one category where brands see the most profits; the other are their bags. Pleasingly beach-ready – gorp-y backpacks, bumbags, cylinder bags with no shortage of zippers and buckles – the bag department was all made of nylon.
Simons and Prada’s partnership has weathered the pandemic and creative tumult of designer shake-ups at other luxury brands. The foundation the two have set up for themselves since spring/summer 2021 has stationed them as one of the most stable voices in fashion. Still, what storms lay ahead aren’t any of the duo’s concern. They’re here now to dress you for the (Euro) summer.
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