In the Texas desert near the little town of Marfa, on a stretch of Highway known as the loneliest road in America, sits the Prada store that got left behind. No attendants bustle behind its chic white counters, though it’s fully stocked with veblen bags and shoes. The automatic doors don`t open and no one will validate your parking, but the lights do come on at night, making its glowing glass frontage the only illumination for miles around.
The Prada Marfa is a permanent art installation, built by a Berlin-based artistic couple called Elmgreen and Dragset, with the approval and oversight of Miuccia Prada herself- who provided their logo and the goods on display within. Shortly after it was constructed it was smashed and looted, as you might expect, but the artists only returned with more goods, smash-proof glass, and some serious alarm systems, rebuilding it as a little commercial fortress in the desert.
It is made of a biodegradable adobe-like substance, designed to slowly dissolve back into the land over time. It cost $80,000 to build, and all the goods on display within are authentic, if imperfect- the shoes are all right-footed and the bags have no bottoms.
Now it provides surreal amusement to anyone driving through that stretch of blasted land.
