5 Things To Know About Miu Miu’s Artfully Unkempt FW23 Show

The fall-winter 2023 season has largely proposed an elegant, sober and somewhat conservative wardrobe. It’s pocket psychology: when times are tough, we dress appropriately. But that’s easier said than done for a young generation—and often for an older one, too—for whom that sort of mentality doesn’t necessarily come naturally. On the last day of shows in Paris, Miuccia Prada reflected this most human approach to keeping it together in a humorous Miu Miu collection that also incorporated the most-wanted pieces the season has had to offer.

The Miu Miu models walked down the elevated white runway of the Palais d’Iena looking a little frazzled. Sure, they were dressed in the power-shoulders, neat cardigans, pencil skirts and kitten heels we by now associate with the season’s polite, elegant wardrobe, but their hair was all messy and their tights were pulled up over their tops. It was perfect imperfection: a glamorized version of our everyday relationship with fashion, put on a pedestal in all its glory.

For Prada, it was also a study of the relationship between bodies and clothes in the real world. It was, she said after the show, about looking. “Looking at clothes, looking at bodies, looking at how clothes work on bodies; you can do so much just on the body and the clothes. It sounds like a banality, but I observe this myself. The pieces are not so strange, but the way they act, the way they perform…” They were clothes you wanted to live in: voluminous peacoats in shearling or wool, oversized blouson jackets, the perfect puffer, a deluxe hoodie…

Prada reflected the generational mentality she was conveying in her cast. Mia Goth opened the show and Zaya Wade made her runway debut, while Amelia Gray and Emma Corrin closed. Representatives of Gen Z, they all share an authentic and highly personal approach to life and work, which echoed through a collection that was, above all, about realness. Such as those times when you don’t feel like wearing trousers. “I love it! If I were younger, I would go out in panties!” Miuccia Prada said after the show, referring to all the models she sent out wearing knickers only.

The Miu Miu collection was fun, but it wasn’t about escaping from reality. Prada’s reduced silhouette and humble color palette entirely reflected the season’s mood. “A little serious,” as she put it. “I like to embrace that in this moment. Maybe I’m too careful about what’s happening around us, but I can’t leave fashion like some place of nonsense. There’s some excitement and sexiness there,” she paused. “But basically, I think we have to dress for thinking. And for starting fresh.”