Magically Mannish Miu Miu
They say fat is a feminist issue, but fashion is too, especially in the hands of Miuccia Prada, whose latest collection for her label Miu Miu, was a fashionable game changer staged on the final day of the French runway season in Paris on Wednesday, March 7.
Signora Prada's fashion has always stood for expressing the importance and independence of women. Her first aim is to add a certain dignity and elegance, which separates her from so many other designers whose most pressing goal is to make them beautiful.
Not that this fall 2012 collection was not a beauty. With its concentration on dandified masculine tailoring, it was frequently enchanting, though much of its charm lay in the way the clothes will eventually distinguish the women who buy them.
As ever at chez Miu Miu, the setting was sublime. Staged in a massive modernist government building near the Trocadero, elaborately decorated in a mat gold carpeted seating and a runway in exactly the same material as the stiff show invites, the collection opened with silk gents' suits worn with shirts, ties and platform shoes.
Created in hyper colorful zigzag prints in mixes of purple, soft pink and bright orange, the tailoring grew more dandified through the show. Plus, the designer came up with some great tailoring tricks, like a sleeveless double breasted jacket with side slits for the arms to appear, or several cape/jacket combinations that were charming eye puzzlers.
"I wanted to think that when a woman is dressed in one of these suits, and she sees everyone one else in a dress, she just goes pffffft," the designer said with a knowing laugh.
Once again, her choice of footwear was unlike anything else seen on Continental catwalks, sturdy platforms in unlikely combinations of leather that looked like polished furniture, worn old skins, shiny suede and tough metal buckles. So, while it was the last important show in the four weeks of fashion shows, this latest excursion by Miu Miu will be one of the most influential of all collections. And, more importantly, it will empower women of taste in today's world.
