Miu Miu turns ‘real clothes’ into high fashion with sportswear style

Speaking backstage at Miu Miu’s show on Sunday at Paris fashion week, Miuccia Prada said she had been thinking about “real clothes”. The clothes people wear on the street for running errands rather than posing on social media. Her findings? Succinct. “The reality of clothing today is this mix – sportswear, casual, normal,” she said. Her challenge? To make them “more interesting, more rich”. To achieve this, she outlined how she had decided to focus on mixing “elements of sports with sophistication”.

The collection opened with a series of five neatly pleated checked skirts. The first was worn with an equally neat checked blazer but rather than a smart shoe, such as a pump or loafers, there were brightly coloured trainers. The second featured a crop top under the blazer, the trainers swapped for spiky high heels. The other looks ditched the blazer and clipped the tops so they sat just under the bust line.

Later came the type of track pants usually made for mooching around in; here they were paired with smart knitwear and tailored jackets. Gym knickers were given the same upgraded styling treatment, while sports bras were reimagined as sparkly tops, more party than pilates; some were worn solo, others over clingy jersey tops. Jeans, a collaboration with Wrangler to rework its vintage denim, hung low below hips. Instead of buttons, zips or even belts, there were fastenings that riffed on shoelaces.

Prada described the approach as “nonconformist dialogues exploring a form of friction and tension”. This method of clashing clothing genres and subverting the ordinary has turned Miu Miu into a near-billion-euro brand.

It was originally launched in 1993 and seen as a sort of younger sister to Prada (Miu Miu was Miuccia’s childhood nickname). Since then it has made everything from embellished pants to plasters and aprons desirable. On the Lyst index, a quarterly report that ranks brands on demand, Miu Miu currently sits at No 2, just below Chanel. In July sales were up 3% to more than €700m.

In a challenging luxury market, part of what has buoyed Miu Miu’s success has been a clear understanding of what it refers to as its “Miu Miu girls”. A clear archetype, the person who wears Miu Miu or aspires to wear it, likes a look that is a bit odd, a bit messy and perversely sexy. Miu Miu girls are not limited to a fixed youthful age or even gender. Sunday’s cast included the actor Emma Corrin, who wore white knickers paired with a croc jacket; Olivia Colman in a cracked suede skirt suit; and Jamie Bell in low-rise Prince of Wales checked trousers and a two-tone vest top.

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Sport is an area Miu Miu is delving into beyond the catwalk. Earlier this year, it partnered with New Balance on a collection of performance wear for Coco Gauff. The tennis star wore it for the first time during the Italian Open in May and later on Centre Court at Wimbledon.

The move reflects a wider strategy by Miu Miu to maintain hype around the brand through cultural links. The brand has a popular literary club that has explored the works of Simone de Beauvoir and Ama Ata Aidoo and for the past 15 years has been commissioning female-directed films including projects by Mona Fastvold and Miranda July.

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