Miu Miu looked at boy’s swimwear to tempt the girls

Miu Miu is on a roll. Well, they have been for a few seasons now, as we have noted before, which could indicate that Miuccia Prada, now with a co-designer at Prada, has more time to make less clothes. By that, we mean brief clothes. Miu Miu has become the go-to label if you want something really short, or those showing the waistbands of underwear, or both, or so barely covering the bottom half of the body that they will incur the disgust of the famed “Takashimaya auntie” and her screaming: “…you better wear your clothes properly, I’m warning you.” But new Miu Miu fans won’t be heeding any admonition, even if it meant wearing those Speedo-like what-do-you-call-them. We are not sure if we should consider them swim trunks, since they did not appear to be destined for the pool. But they sure did look like them, especially with the brand name to the left, on the hips, just like Speedo’s.

Some of the trunks sat so low, they reminded us of those worn by the cast of the 2001 Japanese film Water Boys. The boardshorts, too, similarly clung on the hips, the white draw cords, as with the swim trunks, untucked— totally visible, as if skinny pussy bows. This was deliberately insouciant, like the turnouts of lifeguards too bored with their jobs to care about appearing smart. But these were not boyfriend shorts (and, least of all, boyfriend trunks), although they could be. The Miu Miu fan is too self-aware to be wearing something borrowed from the guys, even if the overall geekiness of the looks could be considered somewhat androgenous. There was something refreshing about wearing swimwear that did no look Seafolly or as if one was set for the cover of Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.

Ms Prada called her show A Rationale of Beauty. And how did she rationalise it? And did it even need rationalising? To us, no. In the show notes, the brand explained that “beauty must echo the complexity of our era”. And beauty must not be tethered to a single ideal, but is “a rich plurality”. Certainly, “not beauty, but beauties”. And that could be what Miu Miu has been nudging for a while: that short, for example, could be part of that complexity, and that it need not be indecent, unbecoming, tasteless. The thing about Miu Miu’s skirts—no matter how short or how low-slung—is that it is hard to call them slutty. This season, there were something girlish about them, tennis skirts gone frou-frou, minis pretending to be bloomers.

It is really in the styling, too. The skirts were short, but nothing above it were deliberately skimpy. Conversely, the shirts, the blazers—there was something collegiate about them. Some of the looks appeared to be pulled together by a sorority lass. She woke up late in the morning, pulled over a polo top she meant to wear to class, but forgot to change the shorts she wore to the beach earlier or the skirt she had on to the club the night before. In the rush, she did not even fasten her skirt properly, exposing the swim trunks or board shorts she also wore underneath and the white draw cords. Yet, she looked far from reprobate. Even the dressier skirts were teamed with shirt and pullover—prim without necessarily being proper. And that is why to us, Miuccia Prada’s Rationale was possibly the most creative collection of this Paris Fashion Week.

Screen shot (top) ad photos: Miu Miu