The Lady In The Tutti-Frutti Hat

If 24 hours ago anyone had said to me that Miuccia's main inspiration for her Prada SS11 collection was Carmen Miranda I would have never believed them. As it turns out, it was. The Italian genius took Miranda's samba and her famous tutti-frutti hats and she put them into the Prada blender and added a little Warholian spices. The result is what Miuccia herself referred to as 'minimal baroque'. The collection opened with plain one-piece dresses in bold colours and soon gave way to endless bright stripes and cartoony prints with elegant and modern silhouettes. It closed with glamourous LBDs accompanied by (my favourite) 'shrimp' furs, a perfect match for the flapper hairdos that dominated the show.

For those of you unfamiliar with Carmen Miranda's work, have a look at the video below. It is probably her most iconic song and show and you can totally picture Prada's models walking around he fictitious island. My favourite part is that grand finale with the bananas rocketing out of her hat and the tree-high strawberries. What an amazing show that would have been!

I'm off.

[Pictures: Style.com, theSartorialist.blogspot.com, Kidsmodern.com, vintagetextile.com, wilsonsalmanac.com, alexgofman.net]