Your support helps us to tell the story
Our mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.
Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.
Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.
Louise Thomas
Editor
A brand that imbues youth and is hailed as Prada’s playful little sister, Miu Miu proved it’s no longer just reserved for Gen Z, at Paris Fashion Week.
Actors Willem Dafoe and Hilary Swank took to the runway for the label’s spring/summer 2025 show, sporting the quintessentially preppy looks.
American Psycho star, Dafoe, 69, closed the show in a smart navy overcoat and grey suit trousers.
Million Dollar Baby actor, Swank, 50, channelled the label’s key speciality of blending style eras. The Oscar-winner sported a broad-shouldered tan leather trench, with bohemian layered belts and sporty pink sliders.
Models Alexa Chung and Cara Delevingne’s looks explored the relationship between athleisure and workwear – a motif that founder Miuccia Prada has incorporated into previous collections.
Corset tops fashioned out of suit fabric were layered over vests, playing with the modern day concept of ‘work attire’.
Shell suits, sneakers and polos were paired with preppy pleated skirts and boxy blazers.
Noughties it-girl, Chung, 40, sported a plunging Eighties swimsuit under a suit jacket with a pleated midi skirt.
Delevingne, 32, also combined the sporty-preppy style in a black leather blazer and red three-quarter zip-up top.
Launched in 1993 by Miuccia Prada, Miu Miu embraces a more eccentric, avant-garde aesthetic when compared to its sister brand, Prada. The label plays with social irony, often challenging what constitutes as ‘high fashion’.
Designing for Miu Miu “has to come immediately, instinctively and spontaneously with whatever is available at the moment,” Prada told Women’s Wear Daily. “Anything avant-garde, twisted, or challenging becomes part of my Miu Miu vision. In this sense there is a bit more room for liberty.”
The brand’s spring/summer show achieved all of the above. Held in an underground – slightly dystopian – printing studio, press print-outs by the London-based artist Goshka Macuga circulated above the runway.
“We’re just cogs in another factory,” the audio beckoned before the show commenced.
The show was a playful take on preppy – a trend that has dominated Gen Z wardrobes thanks to the revival of the ‘Sloane Ranger’ on ‘Old Money’ TikTok.
It featured navy sweaters over peter-pan collared shirts, layered taupe trench coats and three-quarter zip pullovers.
The collection also drew on the sporty American ‘Ivy League’ style, fuelled by rugby shirts, wide-cut chinos and pieces generally conceived for the country club. Rapper Little Simz showcased the smart but sporty style.
However, the collection evoked some more avant-garde accents, with knee-high leg warmers and kitten heels, perhaps summoning the comeback of the 2010s tween style.
Avocado emblazoned skirts – a true symbol of millennials – were also present on the runway, suggesting Prada wanted to encompass every generation in the Miu Miu show.
The collection didn’t desert Miu Miu’s youthful aesthetic entirely however, featuring delicate embroidered florals on A-line smock dresses, and continued to evoke a childlike naivety.
The front row would debate this claim though, being littered with Gen Z icons, including TikTok’s favourite trad wife, Nara Smith, who arrived in nothing but a a bikini and overcoat to overwhelming screams from fans.
TikToker-turned-singer, Addison Rae – who is experiencing monumental fandom in the wake of her song release ‘Diet Pepsi’ – joined Smith in a polka-dot two-piece and burgundy slingback kitten heels.
Other stars included Poppy Delevingne, singer Camila Cabello and model Barbara Palvin.
Cabello, 27, wore a tartan pleated mini skirt, with a grey wool pullover and white Miu Miu polo.
