#1913 A conversation about Prada with Gert Jonkers – editor-in-chief of Fantastic Man

Gert Jonkers.

Thanks to the good folk at Gilt Manual (Tyler Thoreson, Josh Peskowitz and Jared Flint), this menswear show season was the most fruitful and personally gratifying of my seven to date. Alongside my NZ Herald show reviews, HintMag show reviews and personal blogs, I was commissioned to interview about 30 of the top editors, stylists, writers and buyers, an experience that I found both fascinating and immensely enjoyable. (Plus it gave me a good excuse to talk to all these guys I've looked up to for a long time – read the Q&As here.) One of the highlights was interviewing Gert Jonkers, editor-in-chief of Fantastic Man. In between asking Jonkers about his favourite tipple, Paris shopping destination and runway moment, I took the opportunity to discuss a couple of other things, in particular, his thoughts on the one show that left me most bemused this season – Prada. Check it out, below.

Isaac Hindin Miller: What was your favourite non-fashion runway moment this season?
Gert Jonkers: I feel like it was a bit of an incident free season. In general a lot of things were lukewarm – a lot of things were nice, nothing was appallingly bad, but a lot of things were sort of good which is not the most exciting thing to see. It’s interesting if people really go overboard, whether it’s on the wrong side or the right side.

IHM: Even Prada though?
GJ: Yeah Prada was the one example of where they went overboard. It was a very puzzling collection. Visually I wasn’t wild about it but it was very interesting to hear other people’s reactions. It was interesting in what it was trying to say. It was definitely not a one dimensional thing where you walked out thinking, ‘Oh, I didn’t like that,’ or, ‘Oh, I loved that,’ there were lots of things that were very puzzling.

IHM: I thought after that show it was like Miuccia Prada was playing a trick to see just how far she could go. And next season there won’t be a single fashionista without those shoes on but they’re not necessarily good looking shoes.
GJ: That was what made me a little bit sad. I felt like it was maybe a show for the fashion victims and I’m sure they’re going to show up in it and I’m sure that some people are going to pull it off well. I think Prada’s often very good in making you realize that there’s a new thing coming and I’m not sure if this show did that to me.

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