While Fall/Winter 2023 gave us librarian workwear chicness, Miu Miu went off-duty for its Spring/Summer 2024 collection but got caught in the rain on its way home.
Before the show started, Miu Miu took to its Instagram to warn us about the weather conditions. “Is a storm coming?” read one post while the other featured the worrying words “Is the sky falling?,” both questions answered in the caption with “depends on your POV” written upside down.
Closing Paris Fashion Week and ultimately Fashion Month, the show took place inside the Palais d’Inéa with large screens placed on the runway. Before the first look walked out, the screens started playing a project done in collaboration with Qatari-American artist Sophia Al-Maria and OMA who placed the show in a story of technological ruin – meaning the weather app stopped working.
The opening look felt like a perfect transition from last season into this one: a preppy blazer laid atop a polo and a button-up chequered shirt, accompanied by bermuda-style shorts with a neon green waistline and sandals made out of boating rope. The nautical and rainy-weather theme was clear from the cut, and continued throughout.
The stakes were high for the Miuccia Prada-owned brand, considering Miu Miu was the hottest brand of 2022 according to Lyst, thanks to its balletcore flats and SS22 viral miniskirt that was worn by anyone who’s anyone. The miniskirt has since become an it item revised throughout collections, including this one that offered puffy, ruffled versions attached at the waist by a hanging drawstring.
We also saw the return of the under-style shorts, the sparkly version modelled by Amelia Gray last season, and this season seen in a style resembling speedos and, again, tied off with a visible drawstring. This show, just like previous ones, reeks of icon status pieces that will soon drown our feeds, made evident by this year’s attendees that included Emma Chamberlain, Mia Goth, Sydney Sweeney, Wonyoung and Momo, as well as a Gigi Hadid, Amelia Gray and Petra Collins appearance on the runway.
In the past few seasons, it seems as though Miu Miu has been amping up its viral moments, though not in a theatrics-first-clothing-second type of way. Instead, Miuccia knows how to tap into the otherside of mainstream culture – such as by enlisting Mia Goth to walk last season and Troye Sivan and Björk’s daughter Ísadóra Bjarkardóttir Barney this season – offering us a new take on beauty that always has a certain subversive quality to it.
Take the viral miniskirt for example: it isn’t just a miniskirt but an item of clothing that completely decontextualized its workwear materials to create something shockingly short and definitely NSFW. Fashion Critic Timothy Chernyaev actually commented on this subversive take on beauty (or “ugly chic” if you will) Miu Miu has taken up, as Prada slowly moves away from this trend it started.
Miu Miu is now catering to the self-described “rat girls” or “messy girls,” an aesthetic further pushed by the collection’s styling. Just like last season, models wore librarian-style glasses and had dishevelled hair as if blown out of style by the Metro’s hard-hitting gusts of wind.
As per usual, Lotta Volkova did the styling this season, which was as (intentionally) messy as hair and makeup. We saw bags stuffed with the speedo-style shorts, untucked shirts and unkept collars, as if the models had gotten ready in the dark.
Oddly, it was refreshing to see something that felt familiar from Miu Miu for SS24. After a month filled with newness and brand’s trying to reinvent themselves for the upcoming season, Miu Miu continued on a story that had started last season, with an open-ending that will only be revealed at the next one.
You can take a look at the Miu Miu’s SS24 show above. More fashion week content can be found here, and across TikTok and Instagram.
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