Miu Miu - No Longer Dark, Provocative; Now Delightful, Experimental

Brand Identity

Miu Miu - No Longer Dark, Provocative; Now Delightful, Experimental

From its inception in 1993, Miu Miu is Prada’s youthful step-sister — an expressive and creative playground for the experimental brand. Miu Miu is the nickname of Italian fashion designer Miuccia Prada, who set up an offshoot brand with the same name in 1993 as a platform for explorations beyond her main Prada collections. The brand was a dark, paired down kind, evoking images of Amber Valetta in a slip in a bare room. Moody, even. The sensual nature gained traction and the Prada Group’s new line proved successful.

Looking at the most recent collections, Miu Miu is still youthful, italian and sensual but now fun, playful and more experimental. Avant-garde, sometimes girly, sometimes provocative — but always smart. All brand communications — above, below and digital — project these newer subtle aspects of Miu Miu.

The line is driven by a modern spirit of experimentation and exploration, in short, as put by their parent brand, Prada Group.

Starting with the garments, they are perky, think a bright colored frock paired with a plastic rainbow heel.There is a subtle intimacy with this brand, it is cool but not outright. There is something special about this girl wearing it but you can’t quite pin it down. She is sensual yet playful.

Miu Miu’s Below the Line Communications

I. RUNWAY SHOWS

The runway shows have been experimental, to say the least, for Miu Miu.  SS 2016 showed in Palais d’inna, the dramatically arched building in Paris. The Visuals were striking. Indeed, the arches and ramps constructed for this show were outlandish, “like a skatepark wrapped in gold and silver foil,” said Anna Mower, Vogue fashion features editor. Their recent shows have been streamed live online on miumiu.com as well.

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For Pre-FW 2016, the keywords were Deep. Strong. Red. The eye glides across the velvet of the Miu Miu Automne 2016 collection, photographed by Coco Capitàn. The power of color, that sinuous, vaguely sinister red. During the Haute Couture in Paris, “La Signora”, that’s how Miuccia Prada is called within the walls of her palace, presented her Pre-Fall 2016 collection at the Paris boutique. A rich collection, although not pretentious, yet more distant from that degree of carelessness in which we were accustomed. Intense. Greedy. Green. The other predominant color of the collection, from bottle green to darker green.

The set of the pre-fall collection was obsolete, she simply showed the clothes in their own right in store. It is a departure from big sets, big lights, big city attitude. Did it work? That is debatable.

For FW 2016, Gigi Hadid, a bold faced name was among the beauties sporting looks. Steven Meisel shot Backstage moments from the Spring/Summer 2016 to create an advertising Campaign celebrating the outsider, the iconoclast and the risk-taker that is the Miu Miu woman.

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II. Celebrities, Influencers

For Spring, the Front Row was a mix of Mrs. Prada’s muses — Lea Seydoux, a seductive French actress who stars in nonmainstream movies and Stacy Martin, a French-English actress. She is best known for her breakthrough role as the younger version of Charlotte Gainsbourg's character Joe in Lars von Trier's drama film Nymphomaniac. Many subtle stars, all seductive in look and smart in intellect scattered the front row and perched for photos for the paparazzi. Model Lea Holzfuss opened the show. The designer, who was missing in action for previous shows, due to the loss of a family member, made her first public appearance for her Miu Miu presentation.