Miuccia Prada Is ‘Not Really Interested In Clothes’

Wait, what? How is the designer of an entire exhibit of clothing once put on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art "not really interested in clothes"? Miuccia Prada is one of the industry’s most symbolic and influential designers -- so much so that she’s gracing the current cover of T: The New York Times Magazine.

How can she not be interested in clothes? Prada explains to writer Andrew O’Hagan in the magazine:

“When I started, fashion was the worst place to be if you were a leftist feminist. It was horrid. I had a prejudice, yes, I always had a problem with it,” she said. “I suppose I felt guilty not to be doing something more important, more political. So in a way I am trying to use the company for these other activities.” She later added, “I’m not interested in the silhouette and I’m not able to draw. It’s complicated. I am trying to work out which images of the female I want to analyze. I’m not really interested in clothes or style.”

Prada states that what actually inspires her is opposite of beauty:

“This is a question close to the meaning of my job. Ugly is attractive, ugly is exciting. Maybe because it is newer,” she said. “The investigation of ugliness is, to me, more interesting than the bourgeois idea of beauty. And why? Because ugly is human. It touches the bad and the dirty side of people. You know, this might have been a scandal in fashion but in other fields of art it is common: in painting and in movies, it was so common to see ugliness. But, yes, it was not used in fashion and I was very much criticized for inventing the trashy and the ugly.”

Inspiring? Definitely.

Photo Credit: Getty Images