Prada Plants One in Texas

Prada Marfa

The building mimics a Prada store…but, out in the backside of the West Texas desert. I’ve driven out that way, so I know what I’m talking about when I say there ain’t nothing out there but lots of sand.

The sculpture is meant to look like a Prada store, with minimalist white stucco walls and a window display housing real Prada shoes and handbags. There is no working door; it's locked.

Just don’t tell that to them Texas gals with the ten gallon bouffants ‘cause it won’t stop ‘em. They’ll stampede right through those doors like the bulls of Pamplona.

The shoes start at more than $500 and the price of purses easily climb into four figures. Marfa now has some braggin’ rights because Texas does not have a Prada store anywhere else. So, stick that in your craw and smoke it, Dallas!

To be sure, the Prada Marfa sculpture will provide countless hours of conversation for motorists driving through West Texas like: "What the hell is that?!"

Some of the locals have suggested that Prada Marfa isn't a sculpture at all, but a time warp, kinda like a wormhole for rednecks – to transport those who break into the building out of their dreary hillbilly lives and into a more modern & progressive life of dreariness. One has to admit that even though this is an implausible crack-pipe theory, it has a certain charm (think of a Twilight Zone episode: Deliverance meets Breakfast At Tiffany’s).

The Marfans (i.e., citizens of Marfa, for you Ivy League types) commissioned a protégé of Frank Lloyd Wright to rework the sculpture in a way that would reflect the eco-sensitive, environmentally-safe, green-friendly consciousness of the 21^st Century. Take a look-see below.

I think it befits the sign of the times, no?