To know Laia Garcia-Furtado is to understand that she harbors a profound, well-documented obsession with Prada. Indeed, it stands as one of her most distinct and recognizable professional traits. Throughout her tenure as a senior fashion news editor at Vogue, she spoke at length about her deep expertise regarding Miuccia Prada on the publication’s podcast, “The Run-Through,” and continuously penned countless passionate odes to her absolute favorite fashion house. So, when she was approached by an editor at Batsford Books with a formal proposal to write a dedicated book on Prada, the opportunity felt entirely preordained.
“I feel like I’ve been training my entire life for this,” she remarks, reflecting on the milestone. Still, as a seasoned editor herself, Garcia-Furtado had to pause and conduct a necessary gut-check before diving into the massive project. “I quickly remembered that there’s a lot more to ’90s Prada than those legendary collections that came in the second half of the decade,” she notes, recognizing the vast scope of the era.
Her eagerly anticipated new book, Prada in the Nineties, arrives at a remarkably opportune moment for a brand-new generation of enthusiasts—affectionately dubbed “Miuccia-heads”—who are busy discovering the historic Italian label on social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram. “I think everyone is still so obsessed with the ’90s because, looking back, we think of it as the last decade of a kind of freedom,” Garcia-Furtado explains, analyzing the enduring cultural nostalgia for the period. “The Internet was barely beginning, and people still dressed to their own spirit. But I think for Prada, especially, this is the decade where it went from a kind of fledgling label to the global behemoth it is today.” She thoughtfully adds that it was precisely during this formative period that Mrs. Prada discovered her distinct voice and the encompassing, visionary aesthetic for what the brand would one day become on the world stage. “All those ’90s collections are still constantly referenced to this day,” she emphasizes, underscoring the timeless relevance of the decade’s output.
Even for a lifelong devotee who thought she knew the brand inside and out, the intensive research process yielded a treasure trove of fascinating information about Mrs. Prada and her creative methodology. Among the most surprising revelations was the discovery that the designer’s iconic spring 1999 collection was actually conceptualized as a clever way of fighting back against the prevailing trends of the late 1990s—trends that, ironically, the house itself had helped popularize.
“The spring 1999 collection with mirror embellishments was her sort of ‘taking the piss’ to the hippie trend that was happening around the time,” Garcia-Furtado reveals. “I love when you see her humor peeking through, and that really reminded me of the lace collection from fall 2008—another one of my all-time favorites—that she said she made because she hated lace.” This subversive wit and intellectual approach to garment design have long been hallmarks of Miuccia Prada’s career, distinguishing her from many of her contemporaries in the luxury fashion landscape.
Because the book is completely unauthorized and unapproved by the House of Prada—a fact she wittily and transparently notes right on her cover—Garcia-Furtado had to find creative ways to bring the iconic garments to life on the page. To achieve this, she tapped talented illustrator Rachel Song to visually reimagine her favorite runway collections and historical pieces. Readers will find striking artistic interpretations scattered throughout the volume, ranging from a meticulously rendered chinoiserie look on page 133 to the unforgettable spring 1999 bumbag featured on page 167.
When asked by colleagues if she has managed to send an advance copy of the finished book to Prada’s headquarters in Milan yet, Garcia-Furtado offered a characteristically pithy and humorous reply: “You can’t just reach out to God like that.” For now, the fashion community is left celebrating her comprehensive tribute to a legendary era, with many crossing
their fingers that a copy eventually makes its way to Milan regardless.
