Amanda Gorman on the Presidential Poetry of Prada
On January 20, 2021, President Joe Biden was inaugurated. That same day, National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman wore a bright yellow Prada coat styled with a chunky, satin red Prada headband on her head like a tiara. Americans everywhere were fairly excited about both. Biden was sworn in as president, and Gorman was anointed a style star.
“That wasn’t a custom look! That wasn’t a look that I was given! Basically, it was pulled off the rack. When I was wearing it I was like, Wow, this item that I found by surprise … I can’t imagine this poetic and historic moment without it,” she told me last week over the phone from her hotel room in Italy, just an hour after she sat front-row at Prada’s Spring 2024 show at Milan Fashion Week.
On that indelible day three years ago, people were in awe over Gorman’s duplexity, of the way in which words rolled off her tongue while her Prada outfit wiggled its way into our hearts. That reaction though, was also somewhat outdated. The idea that someone could make you really think while also making you want to know exactly where their outfit is from isn’t revolutionary. And yet, here we are in 2023, still having to explain that all fashion isn’t frivolous and that some of the greatest minds also happen to have the greatest wardrobes.
For Gorman, Prada wasn’t just a maker of clothing she liked but a brand that felt heady enough to be in line with her spoken word. “At the few Prada shows I've been fortunate enough to witness, I notice how completely the brand redefines itself. Each time, I have no idea of exactly what I'm going to see and it's always such a thrilling surprise,” she said. “And I try to think the same way with my poetry. There's some things they typically do and then there's stylistic aspects that remain the same. But, at the end of the day, I want to land the poem somewhere that is unexpected, but also, in a way, inevitable for the reader. There's both the similarities but also the transformation that comes with newness, so I really resonate with Prada in that way.”
Backstage at the most recent show, Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons were adamant to just talk about “the clothes.” Mrs. Prada pointed out that talking about the clothes instead of theorizing, “Is our job. It’s what we do.” The double belts worn together over pleated hot pants, holding up a curtain of silver fringe, and organza cocktail dresses spun like cotton candy with fluffy foating pieces of fabric flailing, as if they were on the verge of being plucked, were thought provoking—not because Mrs. Prada and Simons said so, but because they were beautiful in a way that wasn’t obvious. They were the type of clothing that made you think about getting dressed and of the exquisite surprises you could accomplish through styling.
And like Mrs. Prada, Gorman doesn’t feel the need to explain her work either. She just speaks the words into existence and lets them sit on the ears they reach. You can tell a Gorman poem when you hear it, just like you can spot a Prada outfit from a mile away. And yet, they both somehow still manage to jolt you awake as though you didn’t clearly see them coming. Similarly, the poet’s presence at Prada feels like a no-brainer, and still, it’s thrilling. Online I saw people respond to her look with exclamations like, ‘Of course, she’s there’ and ‘Oh, thank god, she’s there.’
For her outfit, Gorman worked with stylist Jason Bolden to create something “timeless” but also of “her age.” They landed on a baby doll dress with a black top, worn with simple black sandals and a choker from the brand’s fine jewelry line with a large gold Prada triangle logo worn around the neck. Gorman loved the look because, “It felt a little Audrey Hepburn with the black and the white and the long neckline but designed for a more modern woman because of how the dress hit the knees and how it allows the space for life.”
Prada is such a constant in her wardrobe because of that space, which is the same thing that made the newest collection so exceptional. It’s not built for a dream life that’s out of reach, but the one you actually live.
“Prada fits in the context of what I do,” Gorman told me. “And I think it comes from my background—I come from a long line of people who have known that you're going to be judged by how you look. And so if we can show up, in what the Black community often calls our ‘Sunday Best’, then we are putting our best foot forward to make sure that our ideas are being heard.”
She paused for a moment before adding, “And I think that's part of the ethos of the Prada style: How can you be yourself, whether that's comfortable, edgy, chic—or even presidential?”
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