Miu Miu stays steady at Paris Fashion Week as France grapples with political turmoil

PARIS (AP) — As France’s government unraveled in another episode of political instability Monday, the cogs of the luxury industry kept turning. At the Iéna Palace in Paris’ 16th arrondissement, Miuccia Prada’s Miu Miu offered its own brand of reassurance: business as usual, chic as ever at Paris Fashion Week.

The opener was sober — a deep blue warehouse apron dress, all covered up and precise. It set the tone for a collection that was gamine yet grounded, playful but edged with pragmatism. Prada, a pioneering CEO as well as designer, made it clear: Miu Miu wasn’t just flirtatious this season, it meant business.

Founded in 1993 as Prada’s irreverent little sister, Miu Miu is the Italian designer’s freer, instinctive outlet. Where Prada is cerebral, Miu Miu is gamine and skewed—lingerie-as-daywear, bourgeois classics nudged off-kilter, humor threaded through rigor.

Prada, who studied political science before taking over the family firm, has long used the label to probe femininity’s codes — how clothes can be both play and armor.

The apron motif returned again and again, recast in pared silhouettes that exposed flashes of skin or gleamed under shiny buttons. Actor Richard E. Grant, in a long tradition of Miu Miu’s celebrity cameos, strode out in a black sheeny leather apron that read like a kinky chef’s uniform. Milla Jovovich followed in a riff on the same theme, softened with black frills.

Prada framed the choice bluntly. “I want to talk about women’s work, using my work… the apron as a symbol of work that can express multiple messages,” she said of her show. “The apron is my favorite piece of clothing… it is about protection and care… a symbol of the effort and hardship of women.”

From there, the show swerved gamine. Floral minidresses with faintly sporty underpinnings carried the collection toward its finale. Banded frills bisected the bust; geometric torso prints nodded to Balkan or folk references — an echo of the eclectic “mishmash” styling that has long defined the label.

Across seasons, Miu Miu’s strength is its push-pull: underthings recast as outerwear, schoolroom polish meeting club logic, intellect wrapped around wearability. Beyond the show’s palatial halls, those cogs keep turning — not just out of habit but horsepower.

Paris Fashion Week is a luxury engine fueling a vast supply chain — hotels, drivers, ateliers and retail —that accounts for more than 3% of France’s gross domestic product. That robust machinery is why, apron or opera coat, the show goes on.