Miu miu’s working girls

The same hypostyle hall of the Palais d’Iéna, together with an unprecedented art installation, hosted the latest Miu miu défilé imagined by Miuccia Prada. «In the last two years I felt the need to further experiment with the fashion show format, in particular after the 2020 online editions», the designer recounted. «Each collaboration has added an interesting level, in terms of content as well. I feel artists are stimulated by shaping their perspectives in a context other than a museum». Now, the spotlight in the Ville lumière is on South Korean creative Geumhyung Jeong, whose production combines languages and techniques from contemporary dance to puppet theater and visual art. Investigating the relationship between her body and the objects surrounding it, Jeong has always questioned who holds control over whom, blurring the boundaries between what is animated and what is not.

If she often combines metallic, mechanical or technological pieces, as her self-produced robots shown at the 59th International art exhibition of the Venice biennale arte 2022 that caught the interest of Miuccia Prada, now for the choreographer and performance artist it is time to interact with fabrics, hems, clothes. Miu miu’s wardrobe.

In the brand’s exhibition space, a set of screens thus projects Jeong’s latest work as she films herself in multiple videos while approaching garments, slowly caressing them, studying movements to understand their textures or layers. She is uncovering them, in an almost sensual, certainly physical way. Her hands creep through pleats, slip into zippers, jacket sleeves, trouser pockets, unfinished skirts, shirt collars. Geumhyung Jeong leaves a message on the seats: «There is a codependency, but in the end, machines do not need us, we need them», explaining that it is what surrounds us that creates our movement, and the task is to play with things while respecting the rules. And so today she approaches soft materials, «objects designed for our bodies. What is pre-programmed and what is not?».

The set is composed of stage platforms used in theaters, the artist’s recent obsession and an integral part of her practice, which become tables for short films, seatings for guests, and elevated platform for models. Everything is to make them stand out and make people observe better, not just the actress and model Mia Goth opening the show or British star Emma-Louis Corrin, Lady Diana in the fourth season of The crown, closing it. It is precisely the point of view that inspires Miu miu’s latest runway test as an act of intervention and invention. It all centers on the instinctive process of observing, the different ways of doing it, and how, in enacting it, one can in turn transform in the object of their own attention.

«The idea was to look at fashion from a personal point of view», Miuccia Prada commented. «I am always very interested in the way people see things and their consideration. Why some people are attracted to certain ideas while others reject them. This collection explores the idea of looking, the concept that garments can be transformed both in pattern and in the way they are worn, how fashion and design can change perceptions, even of things we think we know. It is an invitation to reconsider». If the observer plays a central role, the object of their observation is not to be considered passive. Indeed, the workmanship on items and layering become indispensable tools for modifying how garments are visually read and understood. Working girls and career women take the runway with impalpable pencil skirts that are so low they reach the knee and overlays whereby stockings pop out and are worn on display, with rigorous twinsets tucked in. A new collaboration with New balance brings skimpy sweaters under big hoodies, under coats, and over leggings on trainers. Almost if Miu miu women were ready to go to the gym.

In a fluid catwalk embracing every identity, with a significant range of releases that seems to wink at menswear, the material contrasts of sturdiness and fragility catch the eye. For a show that becomes seductive when pants come off and thighs remain to veil bare legs and becomes charged with fascinating intellectuality when panties studded with large beads appear to be worn with basic black turtlenecks or precious applications on very light dresses, overlapping each other. Thus, with sheer chiffons opening windows to usually hidden garments, notions of the underlying and the outer are reimagined.

Judgment. To understand the looks, what are they composed of, and how they are combined, one must evaluate them closely. It is precisely necessary to look at them. Miuccia Prada’s Miu miu is an invitation to curiosity, to reevaluate what one knows, to think. (all rights reserved)