Prada Marfa

Looking like something straight out of a movie, therein lies a Prada "store" in small municipality of Texas where the population just barely breaks 200. However things are not always as they seem, because while this store is stocked with Prada goods, it doesn't have a working door, or any way to get in the place at all for that matter...




...and that would be because this isn't actually a store, per-say, it's an art installation that has been around for years now but never had one customer or employee. Back in 2005, artist duo Elmgreen and Dragset put up this installation in the most desolate place they could find, to completely juxtapose high fashion retail with it's surroundings. They got the co-sign (and some free display merch) from Prada and built what looks like a normal Prada store in the middle of the desert. And the visual is pretty stunning.

Sadly some hooligans broke into the place only a few days after it opened and robbed the entire place, but now everything has security sensors that will alert the police. Since then the place hasn't been entered and the plan is to never upkeep the installation so that it slowly and naturally just fades into the desert environment. Pretty damn cool.

Apparently I'm a solid 5+ years late on this one, but after seeing the above image randomly on a tumblr, feeling a little perplexed, and them scouring the internet for information on it, I felt compelled to post.


-john-