The importance of work. Its significance, its relevance and meaning. The Spring/Summer 2026 Miu Miu collection by Miuccia Prada is a consideration of the work of women - their challenges, adversity, experience. Its invisibility is confronted and addressed, recognized and valorized.
Work as an expression of effort. Work as a symbol of care and love. Work as a reflection of independence, a means of agency. The apron, as a universal symbol of work, is afforded a nobility and respect. A reflection on function and purpose, the apron can be simultaneously utilitarian and decorative. Cultural meanings of this garment can shift radically according to changes in materialization and form - from domiciliary to clinical to industrial, physical labor to care-giving, primary and tertiary industries and the domestic sphere. A single garment containing multitudes.
Looks
Moving between these inherited aesthetic citations, sentiments transpose. An observation of factory work in the documentary photography of Dorothea Lange (1895-1965) and Helga Paris (1938-2024) provides a perspective on a reality of clothes. Industrial drill and leather, cotton poplin, silk cloqué, lace, raw canvas embroidered. Shoes, handbags, accessories reflect, in muscular leathers, a notion of robustness and utility, an industrial beauty. Ruffles - the most basic symbol of the feminine - have a transformative effect. Toughness and sweetness. A challenge and inversion of societal definitions, ramifications and expectations.
The show scenography transforms the hypostyle of the Palais d’Iéna - itself a place of work into an abstraction of everyday domestication. It is punctuated by field of Formica tables in contrasting shades.
The cast of Miu Miu Spring/Summer 2026 show includes:
Billy Barratt (Actor), Sateen Besson (Singer), Towa Bird (Musician), Daniel Blumberg (Musician and Composer), Michella Bredahl (Photographer), Anya Chalotra (Actor), Richard E. Grant (Actor), Rila Fukushima (Actor), Hailey Gates (Actor e Director), Florentina Holzinger (Coreographer and Artist), Sandra Hüller (Actor), Milla Jovovich (Actor), Suzanne Lindon (Actor), Cortisa Star (Musician), Celia Rowlson Hall (Coreographer and Director), Eva Yelmani (Actor), Phew (Singer and Sound artist).
