Miu Miu sometimes gets her kicks from being at odds with big sister Prada, but this season, the two were in sync when they offered a stretched seventies silhouette for their tailoring, narrow in the thigh, slightly flared at the ankle. The effect was amplified at Miu Miu by a two-buttoned jacket that closed high on the chest: A simple detail, but it effectively elongated the torso and made for a more formal look. This being Miu Miu, the formality was promptly undercut by cropped trousers and sandals that looked like a hippie version of Scottish gillies, worn with a thick sock (of course) to compound the slightly adolescent gawkiness that Miuccia relishes in her Miu Miu boys. In the past, she's mentioned that this collection is infused with a nostalgic spirit—a recalled memory of other times—and that idea was evident in tops that were piped like pajamas or collarless like old-school baseball shirts. The caps might have been worn by Boy Scouts in the 1920s.
And it was that same decade that could have produced the silky chinoiserie-style shirt-and-pant combos (OK, let's call them pajamas) that were a variant on a central idea from Miuccia Prada's own collection. One of the foundations of the collection was the idea that the clothes should look old but well-cared-for. So the suiting fabrics were treated to appear worn, shirts were faded along imagined folds, ties were stitched together from pieces of other ties (in numbered, limited editions, so mind the carbonara sauce). It's such attention to arcane detail that captures the imagination and makes clothes a little more than, well, clothes. And it's why we love Miuccia.
