Forget Anna Wintour -- fashion royalty Miuccia Prada recently spoke with CNNAsia in light of her exhibit, "Waist Down," arriving in Seoul, Korea. While the designer doesn't discuss Oprah Winfrey's weight or how needy she is, the interview ("a private person in an ostentatious industry," it's her first television interview in three years) makes for interesting watching. While CNN argues, "she was one of the first designers to be inspired by military dress and vintage dresses" (though I'd argue that designers have sought inspiration in vintage dresses for over a century, and Yves Saint Laurent was doing military-inspired shirts years before Prada entered onto the scene), she is without a doubt an innovator and revolutionary within the business.

Of course the interviewer touches on the recession and the role of luxury within it, to which Prada responds, "people spend money on something only if they really like it, so things have to be really beautiful and perfect and exciting, so you can't do and sell anything. You have to work much more, and do objects that are much more appealing." Prada also touches on the conception of fashion as frivolous: "it depends on what you compare it to, if you compare it with philosophy, it's frivolous; frivolity may be something good, something that is part of our lives. I don't dislike it and what I like is the mix. Fashion is about beauty and the search for beautiful things. No one criticizes if you want to live in a beautiful house, no one criticizes if you want to buy a beautiful chair. But so many intellectuals criticize if you want to wear beautiful clothes." As for the fishing waders from FW09? "I thought it was fun. I also like the irony ... I don't like something that is obvious, so sometimes I introduce something that is wrong, something that is different. Something that is beauty by itself is too easy." For the full series of interviews, including Prada discussing the six years she spent in mime school, see here.