Style file: Brave Miu World at "Pradasphere"

Miuccia Prada’s all-encompassing fashion vision takes centre stage in a new installation at Harrods. Rebecca Gonsalves visits her stylish sphere

In the round: scenes from the Pradasphere installation on the fourth floor of Harrods, London

One of fashion’s favourite buzzwords right now is “lifestyle” – and no one brings more style to life than Miuccia Prada. With her, it’s not just about the clothes – covetable thought they invariably are. Witness her latest excursion, a month-long installation on the fourth floor of Harrods, titled “Pradasphere”.

It’s a fully fledged immersion into the world of Prada – eating, breathing and hopefully buying the brand. Centre stage is a collection of archival pieces, grouped thematically and showcased natural-history-style in vitrines and specimen cases, and sprawling through the department store’s 40 window displays.

The literature that welcomed the first visitors to the Pradasphere when it launched last week referred to Prada as “a cosmos of its own composed of heavenly bodies set in a complex orbit”.

Prada’s sphere of influence encompasses more than just fashion, and as such, a broad range of inspirations and obsessions are celebrated, from art and architecture to cinema and sport. A collaboration between Prada and design consultancy 2x4 New York, the Pradasphere champions the work of friends of the brand, such as directors Wes Anderson and Ridley Scott and Rem Koolhaas’s firm OMA which has collaborated with Prada for more than a decade.

A final flourish is the installation of an outpost of the Marchesi café, fusing this elegant Milanese institution, recently purchased by Prada, with one of London’s finest.

Curated by Michael Rock and inspired by Giacomo Balla’s Futurist Universe published in 1918, the Pradasphere sets out to be the point where “idealism meets vanity, intelligence meets passion, fashion meets fiction”, and it does so with aplomb. And, as with all good exhibitions, the gift shop’s not bad, either.

Pradasphere at Harrods, 87-135 Brompton Rd, London SW1, until 29 May