Vogue fashion critic Anders Christian Madsen reports on the final show of Paris Fashion Week, which saw Miuccia Prada double down on her miniskirt proposition and reintroduce Miu Miu menswear.
The collection reiterated Miu Miu’s current impact on fashion
On the last day of Paris Fashion Week, Miu Miu didn’t just close a month of shows, but made it come full circle. The collection Miuccia Prada presented last October hit this season with trendsetting force. Around the fashion landscape, it seems everybody has been wearing her cropped sweaters, micro skirts and oversized blazers, but maybe it’s because that exact silhouette has also unmistakably filtered into the autumn/winter 2022 runways. This season, she doubled up on her original message.
It was tennis-themed
While last season’s Miu Miu collection tackled the office wardrobe, deconstructing and minimising skirt suits with Y2K panache, its follow-up show decoded the dress codes of tennis. Prada worked the tennis skirt from the knee up, raising it to new highs, while cropping or magnifying polo shirts to achieve Miu Miu’s new signature silhouette. She played with the Argyle sweaters and track tops of the tennis territory, adapting them to fit her constant balance between very relaxed and super sexy.
It was all about the jackets
For all the cropped sweaters and miniskirts we associate with the new Miu Miu look, Prada’s outerwear proposals are some of the strongest components in the package. She demonstrated that fact in little shearling jackets, stained leather jackets with matching skirts, and snakeskin-printed leather numbers sure to cause shop floor commotions. As the show progressed, jackets became increasingly embellished as Prada added elements of glamour to her Miu Miu proposition.
It relaunched Miu Miu menswear
Miu Miu menswear is the stuff of legend. Fashion people love to reminisce about it and lament its discontinuation in 2008. This season, Prada finally brought it back, including several male and nonbinary models on her runway. True to the spirit of the time we live in, the new Miu Miu menswear wasn’t that different to the womenswear. Rather, Prada was making a statement about clothes just being clothes – if you’re a guy who wants to wear a tennis skirt, by all means make it Miu Miu.
Guests watched the show from deckchairs
At Palais d’Iena where the Miu Miu show traditionally takes place, deckchairs lined the runway inviting show-goers – exhausted from a month of collections – to sit back and relax. They were decorated with the animated monster motifs of the duo Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg, continuing last season’s new Miu Miu tradition of featuring the work of artists as part of the show production. If Prada’s deckchairs were telling us to take a breather, it felt like a fitting parting message to a Paris Fashion Week that will be remembered as the ultimate post-pandemic return to what fashion calls normal.
Editor
Anders Christian MadsenCredit
Photo: Courtesy of Gorunway
