Embellished Tweed Dress, $6,200, Prada, 212-334-8888 Marko
Metzinger for The Wall Street Journal, Styling by Anne Cardenas
ONE CAN COUNT on Miuccia Prada to never take the easy way out.
That's certainly true when it comes to creating customized
fabrics and prints that leave knock-off artists scratching their
heads and throwing up their arms.  For her fall collection—a
darkly cinematic re-imagining of the wardrobe of an elegant '50s
woman—she turned her attention to tweed, which she showed in
dresses, coats and skirt suits with flaring hems. They're made
from two varieties of tweed that come in a range of moody,
autumnal colors, and took the Prada team weeks to develop.  The
fabrics have a rich depth when seen from afar, while up close,
they look almost blurry. Both qualities comes from a felting
technique that essentially distresses the material.  The lengthy
process starts with a loosely woven tweed, which is immersed in
boiling water and soap and then wrung out by a machine that mats
its fibers. Next, it g