How the lens has changed when we look at clothes that date from the Great Before. Miu Miu’s fall 2020 runway show was fated to be one of the last in Paris (on March 3). Who knows when we will reconvene for a packed-together fashion gathering again? These clothes—the pre-fall 2020 collection released here in look-book form—were first seen by reviewers in Paris in January, in one of those whizz-through showroom appointments that pass in a blur between the menswear shows.
Miuccia Prada has always said that Miu Miu is her more spontaneous, less intellectual reaction to her feelings. This one foreshadowed the main collection’s thread, which was about glamour and the joy of dressing up, from a young woman’s point of view. Something about the visuals suggests the awkwardness of a girl standing, perhaps, at the periphery of a party or a wedding—a throwback to a late-’60s, early ’70s mood which quite possibly reminded Miuccia of herself at that time. Now that there are only Zoom parties and socially distanced mini-wedding celebrations to attend, what remains as relevant? Anything with top-detail (there’s actually a lot amongst the eyelet, Peter Pan collars, and pearl-beaded bibs), and then, the patch-worked prairie dress looks, which look notionally well-adapted to the dog-walking and chore-running that are the sum of most of our circumscribed outdoor routines during lockdown.
