Miuccia Prada is interested in the political and the pervy. Always has been—but especially now. Today’s Miu Miu show had kitschy nylon-looking negligees layered over sweaters and gingham shirts; it involved wintry purple and green lozenge-patterned narrow coats and midi pencil skirts, fur stoles and boxy Deco-patterned cardigans. Anxious that this doesn’t make sense? Don’t be. That is exactly Prada’s point. Though the outrageous glam rock–meets-Kiss multicolored patchwork platform boots are her other point, obviously: They might as well have had “Buy Me Now” picked out in the glitter on their heels.
It all came out in an end-of-season conversation in the dark at the conclusion of the Miu Miu presentation—the show at which the audience is always stir-crazy after looking at clothes for 28 days in four cities and not exactly feeling entirely compos mentis. Neither is Prada, who talked about how she had to put together both the mainline Prada collection and Miu Miu in the midst of dealing with the passing of her 103-year-old aunt, Nana, whom she described as “a second mother.” The designer wasn’t at the Prada show, so this was the first time she surfaced in public this season. “Really, Miu Miu was about irrationality,” she began. “The times we are in are extreme. There’s conservatism on both the right and left in politics. And then, people look for escapes from it, attracted to strange religious beliefs or underground clubs and music.” One of the underground clubs she’s thinking of is definitely kinky—a “sexy salon,” she quipped, laughing as she indicated those see-through negligees, which were caught up in quite a few looks.
As so often was the case this season, the assemblages on this runway seemed made to be pulled apart, layer by layer, and absorbed into a woman’s wardrobe in whatever manner makes sense to her. The ways of high-fashion styling are indeed extreme, but surely even the most ambitious blogger won’t be daring enough to parade herself in the full Miu Miu rig in front of next season’s street photographers. Ladies suffering from dementia may be seen going out shopping thus attired, forgetting in which order the nightie goes on, but mimicking them in full may be a few steps too far down the road toward kooky delirium for most.
On the other hand, there were the aforementioned boots, a major draw in a season of loudly decorative footwork, not to mention more conservatively sweet ballet slippers (again with a touch of the “confused” in their mismatched ribbon ankle ties), tiaras, ruffle-neck blouses, a Swan Lake tutu—and within it all, goth black-and-white silk pieces printed with candles and cigarette lighters, surely a mini collection unto itself. There’s a method to Miu Miu’s madness after all.
