Little sisters just want to have fun

A fierce female shooting multiple arrows at the audience in a striking video at Miu Miu, a powerful symbol of this brilliantly bold collection and show from designer Miuccia Prada in Paris on Tuesday.

Bringing to a fantastic climax the four-week runway season of Spring/Summer 2024 collections that began in New York on Wednesday, September 6.
 
Part of a special project by artist Sophia Al Maria commissioned for this show, whose videos hung throughout the Conseil Economique, as the cast sped around the French Rationalist style space. 

A collection starring naughty nerds and spiffy little sisters mixed up between cute younger brothers, all wearing instant-hit clothes. 
 
It felt like a new vernacular and silhouette – with absurdly short minis, skirts, shorts and miniature tutus combined with sports shirts and blazers. All jaunty, edgy and cool.
 
For after-hours the handkerchief tops made in aged leather, and massively pleated matching skirts will win instant respect, as will the new hipster suits –jerkins and frayed mid-length skirts all composed in coppery, papery leather.
 
Miu Miu’s boyfriends wore suede student dusters, skinny knits, slouchy truckers’ jackets and, like the girls, had their hair plastered down with gel. 
 
Before the girls graduated from college and sprung for a great series of batter gold silk dresses and opera coats.

See catwalk

Miuccia, who eschewed logos for many years as if keepsakes of weaker designers, now embraces the logo pretty much everywhere. Miu Miu appearing on navy blue soft-collar shirts; leather belts; cute bucket bags; undies and knickers; jacket crests; or even embossed on coats. 
 
Always a great source of footwear, the new Miu Miu mountain climber robe sandals will be mega must haves next spring, as will the deliberately scruffy docksider and worn sneakers.
 
A bookish bunch, a good third of the models wore glasses, sexy swots out on the rampage.
 
At the finale, Miuccia again took her bow with her design director Fabio Zambernardi, like at Prada the week before last – bringing down the curtain on a three-decade career at the house. And what a great way to go, because this collection simply made most of the runway shows in the past month – all 350 odd of them – look, well, so last year.
 
It is of course somewhat arid to rank designers numerically. But with this bold Miu Miu show coming 12 days after a masterly display at Prada, Miuccia Prada has re-established herself as the dominant designer in fashion, after a hiatus of around a decade.
 
Not bad going for a lady of 73 who also runs Europe’s most dynamic art foundation with her left hand.