The Italian fashion house’s recent analogue-tech inspired show demonstrated how treading the line between the sublime and the ridiculous can spark a social media frenzy – and get everyone talking

Forget The Devil Wears Prada – the Italian luxury fashion house looks to have drawn on The IT Crowd for inspiration at its recent Shanghai-based spring/summer 2020 show.

Designer Miuccia Prada appeared keen to equip fans of the brand with everything they might need for an IT conference in 1989: the show’s standout print was a repeating retro pattern of floppy discs, boom boxes and cassette tapes, printed on jackets in black and beige. It gave the young, clean-shaven models a boyish innocence and none of the looks would have seemed out of place in an episode of Stranger Things, each one social media catnip.

Prada has form in making the mundane must-have; last year the label was responsible for turning the lanyard into the summer’s hottest accessory. Although Miuccia said that the location of the show hadn’t influenced the collection, it was hard to ignore the irony of the analogue aesthetic in a country known for driving technological innovation. And it highlighted her ability to harness social media meme-dom as a marketing tool. The self-conscious ugliness of brands such as Prada drives people to social media to ridicule it (free advertising), while making those who wear Prada feel as if they’re in on the joke.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Moncler and Craig Green take puffer jackets to the extreme. Photograph: 5 Moncler Craig Green

The same thinking applies to some of fashion’s more outre looks. Take the autumn/winter 2018 collaboration between Moncler and Craig Green, that pushed the idea of the puffer jacket to the extreme – garnering comparisons with the Michelin man, a walking sleeping bag and a tampon. At London fashion week men’s on Monday, Green’s show had some models dressed as huge children’s party decorations or Mexican Easter flags (he has won British Menswear designer of the year for the past three years).

Similarly, French It-designer Simon Porte Jacquemus has a penchant for pieces that are likely to go viral. His “mini chiquito” bag nestles comfortably into the palm of one hand while his “la Bomba” hat would provide enough shade for a family of four.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Simon Porte Jacquemus’s ‘mini chiquito’ bag. Photograph: Richard Bord/WireImage

Graduate designers are also adopting this strategy. Last week, Central Saint Martin’s Fedrik Tjærandsen’s inflating and deflating “balloon” dresses went viral, and Vogue dubbed Tjærandsen a “groundbreaking talent”.

The approach implies that key to a designer’s success in the social media age is finding that sweet spot between being lightly ridiculed online and adored by the fashion crowd. Despite Miuccia Prada’s championing of all things analogue, she is likely well aware of the role modern technology plays in her label’s success.