Talk about a volte-face. At the beginning of Milan, Miuccia Prada made a play for sweetness with zippy car-print dresses, retro maillots, and high-heeled sandals with tail fins. Today at Miu Miu, she opened with a model who let's just say doesn't belong to the Natasha Poly school of good looks, wearing a black blouse wrapped with a shape-obscuring matching stole across the chest and a plain gray A-line skirt. Hollywood to hausfrau in less than two weeks.
Afterward, she made a point about designing the collection in the "15 days" (13 by our count) since her Prada show. "I tried to do something different." Tried and succeeded. Though there were some overlaps—midriff-baring bra tops made a reappearance, as did lace—the emotions the two collections produced were quite dissimilar. There was at once something folksy about Miu Miu and slightly cold. As the show progressed, though, she added color (oxblood, cherry red, cerulean blue) as well as festive prints. There was nothing to quite raise the temperature like those Marilyn Monroe bathing suits in Milan, but we can see fans warming to the stiff lace tent dresses here or a patchwork print skirt worn with a clashing print top. The leather intaglio mules and boots will be street-style fodder, no doubt.
Still, there's no one like Prada for keeping us on our toes.
