What happened between Madeleine White and Prada

The Monday after Milan Fashion Week is always difficult. You regain your strength, watch the trends and get involved in controversy. And when it comes to controversy, there's no better social media than Twitter The case has been called Prada Jumper Gate and it's all about influencers, PR and a pair of scissors. But let us take a step back. The talk of the town on Twitter at the moment is Madeleine White, a British-born model from Los Angeles who became popular on TikTok thanks to videos of her sewing her looks. Among the most shared videos is one in which Madeleine recreates a Chanel dress. With 4 million followers, it's no surprise that her content has resonated beyond this platform. And so it was that before attending the Milan-based fashion house's 2023 2024 autumn-winter fashion show, Madeleine decided in her hotel room to transform a one-piece jumpsuit by Prada from the spring-summer 2023 collection into a two-piece outfit, which went viral. "This is the jumpsuit, very chic, very practical...," Madeleine says in the TikTok video, before adding: "I think we need to make it a bit more me" and picks up a pair of scissors. It does not take long for Prada's uniform jumpsuit to be cut up and turned into a short miniskirt, cropped jacket and leg warmers because, as she says herself, "we do not waste anything in this house." One to three pieces and that's two million views. It's not magic, all it took was a pair of scissors and an invitation to the Prada fashion show.

"I think Pradajumpergate is a perfect example of invitations and PR resources being spent on the wrong people. Why did the team at PR, think they would carry it?" Writes one Twitter user. However, we believe that nothing was left to chance. Although comparing Blanco's event in San Remo, where the rose garden was destroyed, to Maddie transforming the jumpsuit before the fashion show is like combining the recipe for fried chicken with cornflakes, we'd like to say that this was - probably - exactly what Prada wanted. And what? To grab the attention of Gen Z with a creator who cuts, repurposes and wears an outfit that looks so much like Miu Miu. This is how Prada, which has always been a symbol of intellectual femininity, manages to transcend itself to TikTok views and Twitter tweets. "I feel like the Prada rep who invited Maddie knows what kind of content she does and that she likes to change her clothes, so they sent her the most basic and ugly jumpsuit (to change). It would be a completely different story if she was tailoring a couture dress, which is not the case." Louis Pisano also joined the debate. Commenting on the outfit Madeleine created, the French fashion editor said, "It was planned in advance, with options of how she would do it herself, and this was the approved choice for the content, so this particular look was sent to her because it's a perfect piece for her to turn into something well... Unique." And so, amidst the media chaos of fashion month, Prada manages to stay in the spotlight with only a pair of scissors and a PR department that TikTok loves.