As artificial intelligence continues to streamline and simulate our world, the act of uncovering true craftsmanship has become its own form of modern luxury. Sure, a bot can whip up its own kind of masterpiece in seconds, but the complexity of human hands and old-world ateliers? That’s the dreamy stuff right there. Enter Prada, which turned to intricate design techniques to explore a central question for Fall 2025: “What is femininity today?” Titled “Raw Glamour”—a name that gestures toward the tension between refinement and edge, structure and spontaneity, and a divide Prada has long and effortlessly straddled—the collection sees Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons reframe the beauty codes of the 1950s for a modern gaze. Think little black dresses, paper bag waists, and retro sheaths—steeped less in sexiness, more in self-possession. “Ugly is attractive, ugly is exciting,” Mrs. Prada famously said, which leads us to Look 28, a slate grey Shetland wool dress that reimagines the idea of ideal beauty through a quietly radical lens.

A contoured bust, nipped waist, and softened hips, a silhouette that screams mid-century sensuality (think: Joan Harris slinking past the male gaze on Mad Men), is rewritten with raw edges as if to say, “Don’t come hither.” The dress is the product of two pillars of Prada’s design ethos: pattern making and tailoring, brought together in a way that is both technically rigorous and creatively intuitive.

In the house’s Milan atelier, it all begins with the pattern. The lines and volumes are carefully defined, constructed, deconstructed, and rebalanced with various weights of fabric. From there, the garment is cut—its most striking feature being a network of pleats and darts concentrated across the bodice and skirt. These aren’t your standard pleats; each one is built using layered double inserts in contrasting colours. Raw edges are left exposed with a zigzag stitch that offers structure while preserving the dress’s sense of fragility.

And then, the “savage finish.” (That’s not a marketing term—it’s the name of an actual technique.) Here, the garment is taken through a controlled destruction process: tailoring scissors rough up the edges to create irregular frays, while an abrasive brush is used to hand-scratch the surface, adding a palpable tactility to the wool. It’s a gesture that subverts perfection, creating a texture that’s at once ruined and revered.

If the rawness suggests spontaneity, the pressing process reminds us of Prada’s obsession with precision. Calibrated down to the millimetre, it sculpts the final form, with ironing rounding out the hips and setting movement into the pleats. The final detail: two raw-edged buttonholes at the front secure a two-toned ribbon cut from the same contrasting fabric as the pleated inserts and tied, by hand, into a bow. This deliberately unfinished technique is most notably captured through Prada’s Tumulte bag in vitello old, and the runway pumps.

All told, the dress demands more than 24 hours of craftsmanship. Ten of those are reserved for garment assembly, with another three dedicated solely to the “savage” finish.

In an era where digital filters and fast fabrication dominate the fashion conversation, Prada reminds us that real glamour is slow, studied, and slightly off-kilter. And above all, made by hand.

Feature image courtesy of Prada.