One of the world’s largest fashion retailers Zara has teamed up with the Prince Estate to release a capsule collection available online and instore across the UK and Europe.
The menswear collection consists of 5 garments – two t-shirts, two jumpers and one hoodie. The collection could definitely be viewed as unisex. The size ranges for the collection are disappointing – a very limiting S, M, L and XL. The company is known for having some of the smallest sizings on the high street so I’m not personally expecting to get into any of the collection easily. For fans of Prince’s eccentric wardrobe, filled with exquisite tailoring and embellishment, don’t hold your breath. As an activewear range, designs are mostly monochromatic with a hint of signature Prince glamour.
As mentioned this is an activewear range so the small collection is more geared to running errands or hitting the gym than a night of Princely decadence. The closet we get to His Royal Badness flamboyance is a matt bugle bead encrusted logo sweatshirt. A nice touch but how amazing could this design be if they brought out the Love Symbol paillette sequins Prince favoured in the mid-1990s? Perhaps a touch far for the everyday Zara shopper.
The garments are styled very minimally for the Zara website – the opposite of Prince’s personal style. Every separate is paired with a pair of jet black skinny jeans (no high waists/ no buttons/ no stretch flared yoga pants) and LOAFERS – yes LOAFERS! Of course, I don’t expect the models to be dressed up as the musician but styling could have been a bit more inspired.
I’ve read many online comments about this latest release from the Estate – Prince wouldn’t wear that/ he wouldn’t want his face selling t-shirts/ why no Lovesexy pastels? Looking at the collection as a whole I can see a (heavily watered down) trace of Prince’s sartorial handwriting. The capsule collection is (mostly) monochromatic, clean and graphic. Attributes that could be seen in previous Prince design details such as the Nude tour and 3121 outfits. Unlike the majority of Prince’s clothing, these garments are not tailored but oversized and would not look out of place in your average high-street streetwear collection. Zara and the Estate have been clever here – this is what sells, not assless canary yellow pants.
The ‘Love Print’ sweatshirt initially seems the furthest away from signature Prince style but the graphics are lifted straight from a 1996 black leather design currently housed within the Paisley Park archives. Nice attention to detail guys! The bold collegiate style white and black letters are blown up and emblazoned across the plain sweatshirt in white and grey.
The Lovesexy hoodie seems to be getting a lot of love online – it’s a no brainer really – we all want that iconic Lovesexy font down on forearms. How I wish there were some matching leggings too! What is apparent throughout the capsule collection is Prince’s dynamic style cannot be easily transferred into highstreet fashion. In fact, Zara and The Estate have cleverly adapted iconic (and not so iconic) gems from Prince’s wardrobe and translated them into accessible activewear that even a non-Prince fan could enjoy.
Following the unnerving news that the Estate is severing ties with Graceland Holdings, could this collaboration be part of the funding plan to help manage Paisley Park? I wouldn’t be mad if selling some bog-standard Controversy t-shirts for accessible prices on the high street would safeguard the continuation of Prince’s wardrobe being accessioned, conserved and displayed for future purple fans for many years to come. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Casci Ritchie 