UNDERSTATED ART

By Martha Duffy

IT TOOK HALF A DECADE and some very lean seasons for most designers to figure out what women were looking for in the '90s. But one, Miuccia Prada, knew the answer all along: wearable clothes with a touch of class. Prada is a cult that is about to become a movement. The popular thing to say about the Prada style is that it looks like nothing--but that is meant as a compliment. Instead of making a bold statement, like Versace or Lacroix, the clothes are unassertive, combining traditional good manners and an ultramodern industrial sleekness.

Thanks to Miuccia, the Milan-based house of Prada has gone from being a staid leather-goods firm to just about the most prized name in the apparel business. There are no clearance sales of Prada clothes; they can be hard to find at full price. The firm, run by Miuccia and her entrepreneur husband Patrizio Bertelli, has been cautious about expansion, but in the next year new outlets will be popping up--Atlanta; Costa Mesa, California; and the Bal Harbour district of Miami. The house now receives the ultimate accolade: it is widely copied. Several outfits in Calvin Klein's latest CK collection pay sincerely flattering tribute to Prada trademarks: chaste, neatly fitted coats and dresses; narrow belts; dropped waists.

Following any first fashion success comes the inevitable: a second, cheaper line. Prada's is called Miu Miu. It costs less than half the regular line ($150 for a top to $750 for a leather jacket) and is aimed at a younger market. The clothes, which were shown this month in New York City, are raffish, designed for the young and slender. The designer treats them as a sort of private joke. "It's about the bad girls I knew at school, the ones I envied," she says. "It's about bad taste--which is part of life today."

Bad taste? Miuccia Prada, now 46, grew up in the world of couture, learning about fine fabrics from her mother and wearing Saint Laurent as a teenager. The playoff between the trappings of elegance and industrial streamlining is Prada's signature. Her first designs back in 1979 were backpacks and tote bags cut along classic lines but made of tough nylon used by the Italian army. They are now the '90s equivalent of Louis Vuitton initials. Prada says she was drawn to designing by her overwhelming fascination with clothes and textiles (she still has every outfit she ever bought and lifts an occasional idea from a Courreges or a Chanel in her own wardrobe).

In her youth she was an aristocommunist who wore jeans one day and couture the next as she passed out leaflets on street corners and talked the night away in political cafes. All that changed when she was 28 and inherited the family firm. The itch to design and expand into women's clothing began almost at once. She met her husband when she stopped by his leather-goods display at a trade show and pointed out what was wrong with his merchandise. They now have two mischievous little sons ages 5 and 7.

With her design profile firmly in place, Prada is starting to alter it. "I know the moment of danger," she says. "It comes when they look to you for one thing only. Then when the fashion changes, they go away." The spring collection, shown in Milan last month, is identifiably Prada, but there are changes. The dropped waistlines are still around, but the chic, skinny belts are gone. So is some of the minimalist severity. "I'm tired of retro; I'm tired of chic," says the designer. Instead she uses color--but not loud color--more than she ever has and even indulges in pretty floral prints.

The new Miu Mius are even more of a departure. Almost all the materials used are synthetics. "It's a joke--right design, wrong fabric," Miuccia cries, running her hand through a powder blue Jackie-style polyester sleeveless sheath. The punch line? The fastenings are Velcro. Stretch materials--nylon, gabardine, a georgette that looks like organza--are dominant in the collection.

The casual observer might call the costumes sexy, but Prada calls them "uniforms," for work, shopping, kiddie coping, socializing--the service roles of a woman's life. There are tops that clearly resemble lab coats, but if these are uniforms, they are very lighthearted ones.

There is even a mildly subversive touch. Some of the skinny, tired-looking models who wear them have very short blond hair and bear a more than passing resemblance to Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby. Purposely the hair is not quite groomed and the garish lipstick is mildly askew. Perhaps some of these busy women are not quite coping. Or maybe it's just as the designer said: They're bad girls.

--With reporting by David E. Thigpen/New York

With reporting by David E. Thigpen/New York