Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons set a high bar for themselves for their fall 2026 men’s collection, asserting in their show notes that “universal human values, values of civilization – culture, meaning, intelligence, care – may be conveyed through clothes.”

That’s a lot to ask of shirts with dangling, purposely iron-burned French cuffs, flaring wool trousers and the skinniest topcoats this Milan season.

“It’s the Ozempic era for menswear, too,” said one guest as she exited the show, set in what looked like a gutted apartment building, fancy moldings, colonial windows and marble fireplaces still clinging to the outer walls.

The disquieting atmosphere was heightened by the growling Virgin Prunes and Suicide soundtrack, and the usual post-show pandemonium as journalists jostled to be allowed backstage for a debrief by Prada and Simons.

“The idea was respecting a lot of the codes of the past, but also trying to innovate,” Simons could be heard saying above the din.

(Unfortunately, Voice Memos could not detect Prada’s musings from the outer fringes of the scrum.)

In the show notes, she declared: “Uncomfortable is the perfect word, for me, for the psychology of this moment in time. We know so little – we can’t predict the future. So we need a clarity, a precision in clothes. There is a sense of the before, which interests us, even as we search for the new. That is a sign of respect.”

The long, high-buttoning tubular coats were worn with the offhand attitude of bomber jackets or blousons, hands thrust deep into the pockets, telegraphing a vague ’70s mood. The models wore jaunty, crumpled caps or bucket hats, which sometimes came flattened and tacked just over the right shoulder blade, an offbeat styling conceit.

As an alternative silhouette, Prada and Simons proposed flaring Macs or standard trench coats, topped with colorful utility capes. But the slender line is the one that stuck with you, resembling nothing else seen this Milan season.

What also came to the fore were many purposeful imperfections: the crushed and weathered shirt cuffs; the rumpled and creased brown leather employed for a quilted down coat and blouson, among the most striking items in the show, and the abraded seams and elbows of waterproofed coats, revealing a tweed fabric underneath.

The unusual colors – old rose, deep purple, anise green and mauve – also made a big impression, perhaps conveying the value of pleasing and surprising the eye in these uncomfortable times.