For women everywhere, Miuccia Prada’s latest collection felt, once again, like looking in the mirror. Last season, they saw themselves rushing to run errands on a lazy Sunday in the extra-large coats styled over hooded sweatshirts. For Spring 2024, it was the overstuffed, unzipped bags that had everyone giddy. A lot has been said recently about designers finally designing for real life, but it's rare for clothes to feel as alive as Mrs. Prada’s Miu Miu, especially coupled with stylist Lotta Volkova’s work.
Women want Miu Miu (according to Business of Fashion, the brand’s revenue has jumped 50% in the first half of 2023) because Miu Miu gets them. Mrs. Prada knows that to be a woman is sometimes to carry a change of outfit in your bag, so you can transform into another version of yourself that you are already expected to be. And she knows being a girl is sometimes giving in to the defiant urge to cut a school skirt inches too short while wearing a polo entirely unbuttoned, begging for attention from your crush and detention from everyone else. Together, she and Volkova have created a runway language of wrinkled tops and blisters covered in Band-Aids, as if whispering to women and girls everywhere that the evidence of their buzzing lives is just as beautiful as the clothes.
Yet Miu Miu still feels like a fantasy you want to live in. Its models wear blazer tops open without nothing beneath, and underwear instead of pants. Haters will say these looks aren't “wearable”—a buzzword for the spring 2024 season that seems to have inexplicably become a synonym for "good"—but that’s simply because we live in a time where far less risqué outfits still require a t-shirt layered over them on public transit for safety. Maybe these outfits would be feasible if the world was built for us. Miu Miu’s world is.
The Miu Miu universe also takes cues from the prepster style of the early 2010s—the ugly stepchild of the Y2K moment currently beloved by Gen Z. The look is defined by layered polos, blazers with emblems, and tiered ruffled mini skirts with elastic waists. Those who once wore these clothes tend to describe them now with ire and regret and embarrassment. One friend even texted me “I would die" when I suggested it might be back.
Maybe that’s because 2010s prep came about in the weird period of time between no social media and too much social media. Back then, no one was really dressing for an algorithm, but there was still this lingering feeling that you were being watched by more than just your immediate peers, on Facebook or MySpace or Tumblr. And so what did you throw on to impress? A low-stakes fallback Americana staple that represents status and ease but doesn’t require much thought or styling, like a polo worn with khakis or a bubble skirt with a tube top. Perhaps the awkwardness of the era was because most of us didn't have any true connection to this aesthetic. We were cosplaying who we thought we should be—some watered-down version of Gossip Girl—just to feel something.
For years now, it has felt like this period of time might never return to our wardrobes, but it’s about to be everywhere because of Miu Miu. Mrs. Prada is the only designer that could possibly make this happen. Her take feels real and funny, not buttoned-up and stuffy like the Ivy League uniform it derives from.
Backstage, models snapped photos of one another holding the “L for loser” hand signal above their forehead. Of course, no one who wears Miu Miu is actually a dweeb. It’s just that they’re taking these pieces that were previously worn with unwarranted gravitas, and wearing them with the playfulness they actually deserve. Mrs. Prada seems to know most of us look back at this time and laugh at ourselves, and she’s laughing right along with us.
Miu Miu Spring 2024
Tara Gonzalez is the Senior Fashion Editor at Harper’s Bazaar. Previously, she was the style writer at InStyle, founding commerce editor at Glamour, and fashion editor at Coveteur.
