Photos: New York's Metropolitan Museum to Host Schiaparelli and Prada Retrospective

By Monami Thakur | Feb 25, 2012 04:48 AM EDT

The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute in New York will host a retrospective to honor the works of designer icons Miuccia Prada and Elsa Schiaparelli.

Titled "Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations," the exhibition will follow the Alexander McQueen retrospective hosted by the museum last year and will explore the striking affinities between the two fashion legends from two different eras.

Organizers of the event made the official announcement about the retrospective at the Milan Fashion Week Friday.

"A love for art and breaking the rules unite us. These are two such different periods that, honestly, I see more differences than similarities," AFP quoted Prada telling reporters in the fashion hub's Royal Palace.

The upcoming retrospective is reportedly inspired by Miguel Covarrubias's "Impossible Interviews" for Vanity Fair in the 1930s and will feature fictive conversations between these iconic women to suggest new readings of their most innovative work.

Iconic ensembles will be presented with videos of simulated conversations between Schiaparelli and Prada directed by Baz Luhrmann, focusing on how both women explore similar themes in their work through very different approaches.

The exhibition which runs from May-August, 2012, will showcase around ninety creations and thirty accessories by Schiaparelli (1890-1973) from the late 1920s to the early 1950s and by Prada from the late 1980s to the present.

Overall, the creations will be presented in seven themed galleries namely, "Waist Up/Waist Down," "Ugly Chic," "Hard Chic," "Naïf Chic," "The Classical Body," "The Exotic Body," and "The Surreal Body."

Take a look at Prada's recent trendy and glamorous collection presented at the Milan Fashion Week below: