While the world still fawns over her statement bowling shirts and graphic accessories, Miuccia Prada has decidedly moved on. For Spring/Summer 2020 womenswear, the venerable designer pared it all back with a collection of simple elegance and attitudinal dressing. “Reduction to an essence,” she wrote in the show notes. “It is, fundamentally, a collection about the power of women over clothing, and of style over fashion.”

As such, motifs of Prada classicism reclaimed the stage, beginning with the invitation and set: neat gold-leaf cards were delivered to guests in signature Prada baby blue envelopes, echoing the gilded columns that marked this season’s show space, which was lined with glossy ceramic tiles in off-kilter pastels, forming striking geometric patterns archetypical to the brand DNA.

Placing a focus on the “wearer,” the show opened with the perennially cool Freja Beha Erichsen in a second-skin grey knit polo shirt tucked seamlessly in a gauzy white skirt that hit mid-calf. There were neatly-tailored blazers with wide lapels and belt loops at the waist; Jacquard knit tops and skirts in geometric patterns similar to that of the set; feather-light silk gauze dresses punctuated with leaf motifs and metallic gold accents. A scholastic attitude came through in the high necklines, mid-length hems, close-to-body fits and muted neutral palette, while subtle nods to the ‘20s, ‘70s, and ’90s, all working together in a constant state of flux, composed a truly timeless style.