Perhaps it was the corrugated steel or the Nine Inch Nails soundtrack, but Prada Menswear Spring Summer 2024 felt very Raf. Held at the Deposito of the Fondazione Prada, Ms. Prada and Simons co-authored a collection that spoke to clothes as architecture; a shield to protect the incomprehensible mess of organs, flesh and heart beneath and the key to the body's liberation.

This dance between rigidity and softness dawned by the time look 4 begun its lap of the chrome room, when curtains of slime fell from the ceiling into frothy piles of pale green. Dappled with Miuccia Prada's own idea of fantasy, more restrained than the surrealist silhouettes at Loewe and a far cry from the spectacles we expect from Fashion East, the collection could be likened to the leather-look jeans at Bottega Veneta, where traditional 40s suiting is freed through modern fabrications, subbing heavy wools out for its lighter counterparts.

“The body is not something you can see as still," said Raf Simons, "which I think very often it is in a sartorial sense. It ends up being a very architectural construction and the body is restricted." Prada and Simon's approach to freedom of movement was captured through swaying fringed shirts, loose sleeve cuffs, bare legs and deep V-necklines. Elsewhere, tactical fishing vests, pastel mac jackets and anoraks offered liberation through practicality.

The shoes were unusual; as if simply by evolution itself the Prada America's Cup sneakers had advanced into a glossy square toe slipper, unencumbered by laces and arriving in the fleshy palette of a body horror – the softest mint, puce, blood red, pecan, black and beige. And while accessories were sparse, save for aviators here, a smooth tote there, nearly all the models sported shiny black hair bands, sweeping their hair away from the eyes and extending this metaphor of freedom through pragmatism. As if at any moment, Miuccia's men could roll their sleeves up, climb a tree or sink their arms in the dirt and spare their clothes no worry.