Latest news with #Miuccia
The Star
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Star
How Miuccia Prada's Miu Miu films tell stories of women through a fashion lens
Since 2011, Miuccia Prada, the patron saint of smart, messy women everywhere, has been using her Miu Miu line as a platform to commission short films by female filmmakers from around the world, including Janicza Bravo, Mati Diop and Haifaa Al-Mansour. For Miuccia, the films, which sometimes air during her fashion shows, serve as a backdrop to her clothes, which have always explored the chaotic lives of mothers, sisters, rebels, poets and punks without ever trying to reconcile their contradictions. That has made Miu Miu the darling of the fashion industry (Miuccia is also head designer of the Prada label), the rare fashion brand to experience explosive growth at a time when sales in general are slowing. Last year, during Art Basel Paris, Miuccia decided it was time to bring all the films together, and she enlisted Polish artist Goshka Macuga to help. The result was an immersive performance piece of sorts that involved a cast of 35 characters from the films, brought to life by 105 actors. It was such an unexpected hit, with 11,000 people visiting the Paris show during its five-day run, that she and Macuga decided to re-create it recently or Frieze New York. The new show, titled Tales & Tellers , is being staged in the Terminal Warehouse, the cavernous late-19th-century building on the Far West Side of Manhattan, latterly home to the Tunnel nightclub. And it is an altogether darker take on the state of women than the Paris event was (still, wardrobe by Miu Miu). Here, Miuccia and Macuga talk about the endeavour in a Zoom interview. The conversation has been edited and condensed. There hasn't been a Miu Miu show in New York in decades, but now there is. Sort of. Why this? Miuccia: The clothes are an excuse to have the support of the company to create these projects where women are talking about themselves, which is very important. In my work, I have always embraced the complexity of women, the complexity of our lives, how we can succeed in developing our abilities. So it's fundamental to know what women do, what they think, in different contexts. Macuga: All these different stories represent different social problems for women in different countries. Like, for example, the film which I feel very close to, Nightwalk by Małgorzata Szumowska, was filmed in Poland at a time when gender issues were really repressed by our government. It was talking about this idea of liberation within a context that was not sympathetic to difference. Read more: Are films indeed turning into a profitable side business for fashion companies? That sounds like the current state of the US. Is that why you wanted to bring the show here? Miuccia: Not just America. Conservatism is everywhere in Europe. We are facing these really great problems, and this moment is really scary. So it's a very crucial argument – that everybody has the right to their voice. Macuga: We are taking it to the American, or New York, street at night and trying to imagine how a woman exists within this context. It's more threatening, it's more surreal. We're looking at the concept of inside and outside, the idea of individuals coming together in a group and being empowered. How all these individual voices can come together and make a big impact. Is this also the way you raise your voice? Miuccia: It's hard for me to talk about politics because I am a representative of luxury. That's a very privileged group of people, so to translate that in a real democratic way is not obvious. So I try in my own way to be political, but I have to be very careful how I make it public. Macuga: Artists can use language that allows certain narratives to still be present, but maybe present under the umbrella of a more coded language. You're not directly addressing anything or making a statement, but you're creating the possibility for people to project certain ideas into it. Miuccia: What I hope is that people who come to the show feel they can express themselves – their ideas, their problems, their weakness, their struggle. We are basically saying that change or building relationships or empowerment happens on a human level, in the instantaneous relationships that we make with other people. Why is that important now? Macuga: Clearly we cannot take for granted certain positive things that happen for women in society. Governments change, politics change, and the situation of women changes with that. Miuccia: Women's liberation is not concluded at all. Sometimes, it looks like we are going backward. There is still a lot of work to do. Is that what you are trying to convey with clothes? Miuccia: I try to make my contribution with the instrument I have. When you make clothes, you are suggesting possible ways of being. I am fixated on the word 'useful'. I want to try to be useful. Basically, I have the Prada Foundation, our museum. I have the fashion lines. And this is something in between that seems the most promising because it is simple. There's more excitement, less pressure, attached to it. Read more: Elegance with edge: The quiet power of Miuccia Prada's life in fashion What do you mean? Miuccia: First, when we made these little movies, no one cared one bit. We showed them at the Venice Film Festival, in a very serious environment. Then I wanted to do an exhibit at the Prada Foundation about feminism, but while curators are used to curating objects and art, there are no curators for ideas, so it's very difficult. But adding the fashion environment attracts many more people and allows this idea to become much more popular, much more diffused. Suddenly, with this, everybody immediately understood. It somehow accelerated the process, and we wanted to push that. This is one of the miracles of fashion. – ©2025 The New York Times Company This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
The Star
23-04-2025
- Business
- The Star
Elegance with edge: The quiet power of Miuccia Prada's life in fashion
As a student in the volatile May of 1968, Miuccia Prada took to the streets of Milan to demonstrate for women's rights wearing an Yves Saint Laurent suit. Today, the 76-year-old reigns over a luxury goods empire worth more than €5bil (approximately RM25.1bil) a year, with her world now expanding further with the takeover of flamboyant rival Versace. An avant-garde designer whose minimalist style belies its rebellious nature, Miuccia has imprinted her elegant and intellectual sensibility on the world of Italian fashion for decades. As a young woman she wanted to become involved in politics, and took courses in mime and theatre. But she shelved those dreams in the early 1970s to devote herself, along with her mother Luisa, to the leather goods boutique founded in 1913 by her grandfather, Mario Prada. "In the 1970s, as a left-wing woman, I was ashamed to make handbags, and I was also ashamed because it was a profession that I liked very much," she said in 2022. Born in Milan on May 10, 1948, into a bourgeois Catholic family, Miuccia has become one of the wealthiest and most influential women in the world, with a fortune estimated by Forbes magazine at US$5.8bil (RM25.6bil). A political science graduate and feminist activist who frequented Communist circles, she eventually devoted herself body and soul to turning around the family business, which had lost its lustre after the death of her grandfather in 1958. Read more: What's the succession plan like for Versace now that Prada acquired it? A monster of ambition In 1977, Miuccia found a perfect partner in Patrizio Bertelli, a Tuscan leather manufacturer she met at the Milan leather goods fair. He helped her boost the finances of the boutique, over which she took control in 1978. Nine years later, the business partners married. "He was the one who wanted to do something big. I told him I wasn't ambitious. He replied: 'You're a monster of ambition'. He was right," she said. It was the starting point for Miuccia's irresistible rise. In the early 1980s, the designer broke new ground by creating a collection of black nylon bags with a silky effect, which became all the rage. She would go on 40 years later to champion nylon thread made from recycled plastic recovered from the oceans. The brand began growing, with boutiques springing up first in New York and Madrid, then London, Paris and Tokyo. Ironically, her first women's ready-to-wear show in Milan in 1988, all in black and white, was not well received, with critics considering it too austere. But her minimalist luxury, with its clean lines and sombre colours, eventually made its mark, winning over an international audience. Read more: Did Versace's pivot to 'quiet luxury' eventually lead to the Prada takeover? Breaking the codes Federica Trotta Mureau, editor-in-chief of the Italian magazine Mia Le Journal , said that in tapping her fascination with art, architecture and philosophy, Miuccia "created a free universe, a sort of experiment without rules... aimed at breaking the codes of fashion". Miuccia said she has long worn vintage garments, while speaking out against fast fashion, where quick production cycles churn out low-priced items that are often soon disposed of. Her signature garment has always been the skirt, with its infinite variations. Miuccia refuses to see women as "just beautiful figures". "I don't tend to make super sexy clothes. I try to be creative in a way that can be worn, that can be useful," she said. A men's collection was rolled out in 1993, the same year that saw the launch of the Miu Miu brand appealing to younger customers – and borrowing the designer's nickname. Sales of Miu Miu doubled in 2024, enabling Prada to weather the global luxury crisis unscathed. – AFP
The Guardian
11-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Why was Balding rolling around on a sofa with a spaniel when she should have been presenting?
With Crufts completed and the winning dog crowned, I have a large number of complaints, chief among them the interminable wait until the next Crufts. I honestly don't get it – it's like having one football match a year. All that lost skill, all those fans, the empty stadiums, the vast reservoir of interest gathered and then left to stagnate. Where is an average person supposed to watch heelwork to music for the rest of the year? Do they expect us to teach our own dogs to do it? I have nothing against whippets, but upon the coronation of Miuccia – gracious congratulations to Italy for its first best in show in 134 years of Crufts – I need to point out that these are not full‑fat dogs. I don't mean they are too lean – I would never body shame an animal. I mean they are too self-possessed, too standoffish, too independent. They are cat-dogs. If you are going to crown one of those in a dog show, you need to split the top award into categories: best dog in show, best cat-dog in show … hell, throw in a best cat if you are bent on ruining everything. Just as I would never make a personal remark about a dog or a cat-dog, so I would never criticise a six-year-old, least of all Freddie Osborne, the youngest person ever to win a prize at Crufts. Except to say: if you are from Staffordshire, lad, you don't arrive with a fox terrier. You arrive with a staffy. I regretfully point to evidence of bias – not among the judges, but from Clare Balding, the long-term presenter of the competition. She manifestly loves spaniels, to the extent that she let one on her presenter's sofa and then rolled around with it. The only way to rectify this is for Balding to let all the dogs on her sofa next year and roll around with them. Other than that, excellent work, everyone. Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
Reuters
10-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Reuters
Celebrating Holi, festival of colors
Miuccia, a four-year-old whippet, becomes the first Italian pooch to win the top prize at the Crufts dog show.
CNN
10-03-2025
- Entertainment
- CNN
Italian whippet called Miuccia is top pooch at world's biggest dog show
A blonde whippet from Italy with soulful eyes and tiger-like markings won the overall prize at Crufts, the world's biggest dog show, on Sunday. Miuccia, who is 4 years old, became the first Italian dog to win the coveted Best in Show prize at the event in Birmingham, England – an accolade that left her handler, Giovanni Liguori, overwhelmed with emotion. 'It's really a dream come true, I am truly overwhelmed. Miuccia performed her best, I felt her very relaxed on the leash, so I'm super-, super-happy,' Liguori told British broadcaster Channel 4 afterward. 'I absolutely adore her, she's fantastic, the sweetest dog, she always wants to be super-close to me and that's the most important thing. It's incredible, it's amazing, as Italians we are super-proud.' Miuccia became the fourth whippet to win the prize and saw off competition from more than 18,000 dogs gathered at Birmingham's National Exhibition Centre for four days of competition. A Tibetan Mastiff from Romania named Viking finished in second place, becoming the first of his breed to make it to that stage of the competition. First held in 1891, Crufts has become one of the most famous international shows of its kind, attracting dogs from all over the world. Around six times as many dogs compete at Crufts as at the Westminster Dog Show, the famed US competition held in New York every year. Those dogs competing for the Best in Show award qualify for the final if they win one of the seven preliminary rounds that come before it, where they are grouped with other similar dogs. And as well as the famous dog-showing competition, there are opportunities for dogs to showcase their agility and obedience skills.
