Défilé Miu-Miu de Madame PRADA,

Miu Miu: Poise and Positioning

Godfrey Deeny
October 09th, 2006 @ 11:57 AM

Though the salient image that remains of this Sunday night’s Miu Miu show was abstract blocks of color, the biggest news here was the positioning rather than the product.

The label’s spring summer 2007 collection was staged a monstrously classy old townhouse, the sort only billionaires could afford, on Avenue Foch, the most expensive residential quarter of Continental Europe. The setting served to underline Prada’s ambition to make Miu Miu into a major luxury label in its own right rather the younger addenda to the senior label.

That plan seems to be working, and how. When this reviewer visited Miu Miu’s new flagship at 219 Faubourg St Honore on Saturday the place was buzzing – in five minutes we overhead three cell phone calls from moneyed shoppers taking orders from their pals for stuff to purchase, as other fans left the classily finished boutique with bags groaning with merch.

Designed by architect Roberto Baciocchi, the 2,600 square-foot space uses as fittings and finish the very damask, fur, glitter and glass baubles employed in the fashion and accessories, in a strikingly atmospheric execution. In the three days it’s been opened business has tripled compared to Miu Miu’s old store in St Germain.

That same opulence, albeit in a more faded form, was apparent on the Avenue Foch as we filed up the grand marble staircase to Sunday’s show.

“For the first time in my life, I was making a collection without a concept. I just began with abstract African prints, which when we worked with them became Asian and as we changed colors they became Constructivist,” Miuccia Prada told FWD backstage.

What hit the runway was simple yet sophisticated fashion in bold blocks of primary colors – shiny red, navy blue and burgundy – made in rich satins or cable knits. Pants were pencil thin; tunics cut the body, collars micro-sized.

Miuccia dreamt up some great dramatic prints – swirling kaleidoscopes with tied dyed finishes – ideal from a very cool colonial hostesses.

A Futurist moment was also memorable, as the ghosts of Rodchenko graced this mansion, with the high point a crimson and Bordeaux asymmetrical dress worn by Natasha Poly. Looking back on the season – Miu Miu was the very last of the 30-day season that began on a Friday morning in New York - one has to note that this Russian beauty, who clearly intrigues designers and editors equally, gets to wear more outstanding looks than any of her colleagues. No mean claim to fame.

With inspired work by Pat McGrath – she cut eyelashes in half and the attached them onto eyebrows for the coolest of juxtapositions – and some truly excellent glitter rock meets grand dame platforms, this was one of those lovingly well executed moments.

Wandering out into the dark night of Avenue Foch, and biding farewell to one’s colleagues, one had that bittersweet moment of term ending. For Miu Miu, however, the news is all good.

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