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Miu Miu’s Glitzy Irony

With Rihanna, appearing with fiery red hair, sitting front row at the latest runway show of Miu Miu in Paris on the evening of Wednesday, Oct. 6, it came as something of a surprise that the entire thrust of the collection was a commentary on vapidity of contemporary celebrity culture and the emptiness of the global media star system.

Half the looks in this show, staged in a circus style tent inside the beautiful French Renaissance square of Palais Royal, had one-foot wide stars in shiny leather sewn on them.

“It’s my comment on the trash and vulgarity of our epoch’s obsession with celebrity, and people’s little dreams of becoming one,” said Miuccia Prada backstage.

Miu Miu, the more arty and eccentric, though frequently equally influential collection, designed by Prada, has always mixed trashy elements into its sophisticated, yet subversive, mix. But never so much as in this season.

The look was brash, yet somehow purposeful. Asking women to wear clothes whose inspiration was an acid commentary on our times is a tall order. Yet, Prada succeeded in doing just that with multi-pleated sheath dresses, made in striking hues or dramatic prints, always in viscose, or leather biker jackets with classic motifs. The mood was halfway between a ‘50s nightclub in Clichy, the funky north Paris quarter, and a bowling alley in a severe David Lynch movie, set in the Midwest. Miuccia Prada is such an exceptional designer that she can suggest striking cultural references, subvert them with a dismissive attitude and still make a cool collection of clothes.

This has been the least body conscious season in Europe in terms of silhouette in a half decade, and the Miu Miu shape, cut above the knee and loosely draped, looked like the best representation of the current easy zeitgeist.

It helped that the color palette was unlike anything seen on any other European catwalk – fluorescent yellows, neon pinks – supplied by the best fabric resources in Como, Italy, one of the best cities in Europe for innovative materials.

Fittingly, the backing track to the show by DJ Frederic Sanchez was disturbing, discordant mixes of concert ticket ads on provincial American radio stations or gloomy movie soundtracks. This was the final show in the four-week, four-city spring 2011 season, but ultimately the most telling comment on the very celebrity culture fashion exploits and embraces, as much as it mocks.

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