After four weeks and some 400 collections, a final show that veered toward the intellectual was bound to prove challenging for its fashion-weary audience. That was the case with the Miu Miu collection Miuccia Prada presented on Sunday night, which, though characteristically quirky and thought-provoking, felt a bit ponderous at times.

 

Like some other designers this season, Prada took to the Eighties. But instead of shoulders, glitz and glam, she went for the unexpected — graffiti art mixed with an apparent dose of Japanese and a ton of pleats that read like a statement on urban decay. A single slim silhouette, whether belted, strapless or split into two pieces, served as a foundation for avant layers, as in a low-slung skirt sewn over a dress or pleated panels that hung from a waistband to create a half-skirt effect. Pleated sheaths can certainly come off proper and conservative, particularly in tony-looking black and red satins. But Prada turned her prim girls faux poor, distressing fabrics a bit too deliberately with shredded holes and single swirls of graffiti. Such pseudo grit was more appealing on the slim fits than the bulky, sad-sack burlaps.

 

Most compelling were the robust Roman mosaic prints, some sprinkled with shine, which rewound to the classical era, a reflection of Prada’s interest in European history and house roots, she declared postshow. She also paid homage in pixilated patrician profiles graffitied with red lips or splashes of pink — old-school street art made modern.