Before she became known for “ugly chic”, Miuccia Prada mostly made tailoring.

From her debut collection in 1988, she showed well-to-do, genteel kind of clothes; perhaps inspired by her own wardrobe, but certainly reflective of an era when power suiting was predominant across the fashion landscape.

By her third show for Fall/Winter 1989, little had changed. As Ingrid Sischy wrote in The New Yorker some years later, Mrs Prada “used conventional, Seventh Avenue solutions. The clothes were overdesigned, and it seemed that commercial considerations and self-consciousness, not the usual articulation of her unconscious, were leading her.”

Mrs Prada hated making that collection. She laments: “The whole time I was working, I hated everything…. It was not me. It was a nightmare.”

This flared coat fits squarely in Sischy’s accounts. Made in fluid, finely textured navy wool suiting, a double collar with a wide lapel frames the front. Satin trim runs along princess seams toward a nipped waist, where suede-covered buttons are mounted with a gold keyhole motif—a kind of cheeky metaphor for fastening. Below the waist, the coat opens into a generous, dress-like flare that moves when you do, with pockets set into the side seams.

Well-tailored as it was, the collection marked a turning point that would prove instrumental to Mrs Prada’s creative growth. As she explains: “If it’s my mistake, it’s O.K. In fact, I like mistakes, because mistakes are what life’s about—they tell you something’s alive…. Yet this was something that made me crazy…. I told them it was the last time others would push me to do what I didn’t want.”

In hindsight, those keyholes might’ve been foreshadowing; a hint at what she would unlock a few years later: the unconscious instinct and characteristic humor that Sischy described, eventually codified as the brand’s now-canonical “ugly chic.”

Fit-and-flare coat
Wide lapel with double collar
Satin trim on princess seams
Suede buttons with gold keyhole-motif
Nipped-in waist, flared shape
Inseam side pockets

Label marked "PRADA Milano"
Label with brand, material composition and care
Label with lining composition

With repair on right armscye lining. The rest of the garment remains well-maintained.