Matthew X: Miu Miu: Fall-Winter 2011-12.

Miu Miu: Fall-Winter 2011-12.

[ Mariacarla Boscono/Women at Miu Miu: Fall-Winter 2011-12 ]

For the first time in an overdue while, Miuccia Prada has really solidified the distinction between her eponymous line and Miu Miu—the latter is not anymore to be viewed as the sisterly, quiet diffusion of ideas seen at the former. There is no more correspondence or translational relationship between the two. I personally have pinpointed this shift back to the A/W 2009-10 show season, where the Miu Miu collection absolutely blew the namesake label’s offerings out of the fashion waters. That collection honed a handsomely majestic intimacy that hadn’t been explored—uncovered, rather in the line’s repertoire. Its nostalgic art-deco premises were a definite throwback but its smoldering neutrality and moments of bodily exposure proved to most to be more palatable than the subversively dark staging at Prada. Since that fall show, Miu Miu has been reformulated into a high-octane, graphically witty force complete with its own quips, commentaries, and systems of meaning. With that being said, last spring’s outing was a well thought out criticism of the starlet-age, Miuccia ambitiously satirizing the quotients of ego and importance placed on celeb-oriented culture. It was bold and facetiously communicated to her audience her own consciousness of and opinions surrounding the banality of pop media. But more than poking fun at fame seeking—it offered real clothes, artisanally structured in sensuous satins and exploding with graphic floral stenciling. From my experience, when Miu Miu is good, it’s really good. But when it rests on an undisciplined, era-evoking delve into the past, it often loses itself in translation and appears flat like the Mary Quant-by-way-of-Warholian-icons collection from Fall-Winter 2010. For Fall-Winter 2011-12, an unimaginative reinterpretation of the Joan Crawford forties and post-noir culture indicates that a literal case-study approach to fashion is an accident waiting to happen. It had me thinking about the footage of the Andrew Sisters belting out Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy in black and white. And while the perk of that tune deserved a corresponding silhouette with a high saturation, this shapely though underwhelmingly wearisome and unexamined collection (that offers nothing more than a wardrobe of lackluster business suiting) failed to communicate the true sparkle of the period. If there were ever a collection that made me mourn the public shaming and recent dishonor of 40’s maestro John Galliano, it was this one.