As one of the increasingly few women at the top of a major fashion house, the world has never needed Miuccia Prada more. Thankfully, she has been rising to the occasion, her collections for Miu Miu going from strength to strength since she began experimenting with DIY-inspired silhouettes and subverted wardrobe staples as the world emerged post-pandemic. Irreverence, playfulness, and an off-piste sex appeal — never has Mrs P’s take on it all been craved by a fashion-hungry audience.
Her SS24 show was a continuation of last season’s brilliant character studies, which encapsulated the multitudes of being a woman, of thinking about women, with plenty of humour. Frazzled mothers on the school run in their early-morning mismatched outfits; geek-chic students on their way to the library, spec on and bags stuffed full of books; girls on their way back from pilates still in their leggings and New Balance sneakers. The things women get done in a day, eh?
This season, there was a collegiate look to the collection, which opened with navy school blazers, logos worn as crests at the chest, over layers of shirts and fleeces, and varsity-style drawstring jersey shorts, some of which eventually arrived as the new iteration of Miu Miu’s now infamous micro-miniskirt. Something about the way it was mixed together seemed frenzied, almost like two completely different moods in one look: sartorial bipolarity. They could be Malibu private school students caught between classroom and surf club, or perhaps a remote office worker joining a Zoom call while passing off working-from-home as working-from-holiday.
Instead, the show introduced more of elevated staples that have been selling like hotcakes at Miu Miu: boxy Harrington jackets and polo tops, cardigans edged in chandelier crystals, low-slung skirts held in place by thick leather belts, suede jacket-skirt suits glimmering with baroque beadwork, abbreviated Oxford shirts — all in the newfound casual ease that has marked Miu Miu’s collections in recent season and, this time, with the visible patina of wear-and-tear applied through washing, distressing and scuff marks on leathers and suedes. Brightly coloured plasters were tacked onto feet wearing roped sandals and handbags came brimming with a change of clothes and heels à la Jane Birkin.
It all served as an urgent reminder that looking influencer-perfect is boring and unsexy, a message that women need to hear at a time when Barbie is being heralded as a feminist icon and everyday makeup tutorials last more than an hour. Sometimes, it takes a woman to recognise the universal denominators of womanhood —pain, glory et al. But it’s only Miuccia who can take the unruly ways our wardrobes can become a random hodgepodge of style genres — sporty, formal, sparkly, classic, retro — and somehow bring it together in a harmonious, elegantly frenzied look, equally realistic as it is aspirational. More important than that, though, the message that she conveyed so eloquently is that it is the happy accidents and imperfections that constitute real beauty and style. What could be a more uplifting sentiment to close a month of fashion shows with?
