Jake Weber is a New York lawyer who began wearing Miu Miu this year. Many of those who clamour to wear the brand today are not necessarily its intended audience. Photo: The New York Times
A lot can be learned about a clothing brand by who wears it.
Take Miu Miu, the label overseen by Miuccia Prada, who is also the designer, with Raf Simons, at Prada. Many of those who clamour to wear Miu Miu today are not necessarily its intended audience.
While Miu Miu officially trades in women’s clothes, its most recent surge in popularity is due, more specifically, to the men who are now seeking, buying and wearing it.
“I wear Prada, but Miu Miu feels a bit more fun,” said Corey Stokes, 33, a stylist and a senior vice president at Essence Ventures.
Over the past few years, Stokes has accumulated around 15 items from the brand, including a bejewelled track jacket, a gray knit twin set, two pairs of jeans, a leather suit and boat shoes.
“It felt a little more untapped, and I like being in something that no one is wearing,” he said.
The brand piqued Jake Weber’s interest after he watched a video of its Spring/Summer 2024 runway presentation online. Weber, a New York lawyer, first bought a blue checked button-up shirt featured prominently in the collection, and then a pair of board shorts, pants with suede side detailing, polos, sweaters and T-shirts.
He was invited to a trunk show to preview items from the Autumn/Winter collection and is mulling over some outerwear: fleeces, a peacoat and a faux fur jacket that model Gigi Hadid wore on the runway.
“There’s something really pure and light and fun about Miu Miu,” he said.
“One thing I love is you see the collections, and, yes, it’s traditionally a women’s brand, but you walk into the store and it’s like, anything goes,” Weber said. “It can be for anyone, any age, any gender. I mean, there’s price constraints, obviously.”
More “Miu Men” are popping up by the day: Miami Dolphins wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr; musicians ASAP Rocky, Offset and Omar Apollo; comedian John Cleese, who was spotted wearing a Miu Miu baseball cap; and Kim Jones, the British designer in charge of Fendi womenswear and Dior menswear, who often wears its clothes, including during his runway bows.
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At its store in SoHo in New York City, an associate said that once athletes and rappers wore it, more men began to drop by, some unaware that the brand didn’t officially make menswear.
In the last few years, Miu Miu has experienced something of a resurgence.
Some say it’s due in part to the hiring of stylist Lotta Volkova or to the fact that Miuccia Prada has been able to focus more energy on Miu Miu since bringing on Simons to help design for Prada.
Miu Miu was named brand of the year by the fashion search engine Lyst the last two years.
In April, during its quarterly earnings report, the Prada Group, which owns the brand, reported a 16% year-over-year increase in sales, helped by Miu Miu’s staggering 89% sales growth.
This is particularly surprising for a brand that was founded more than 30 years ago as a more youthful counterpart to Prada (Miu Miu did have a stand-alone men’s line from 1999 to 2008).
“I assumed they dropped a men’s line, but I realised the buttons were on the other side,” Luke Fracher said of a maroon polo he owns.
Fracher acquired a few Miu Miu pieces through his luxury consignment shop in New York, Luke’s.
“I’ve always been into the expensive, or nice, version of the thing you’d already have,” he added.
All this speaks to the way some men shop today, unconcerned with whom items are designed for. Miu Miu, too, is shrewdly playing into this gender ambivalence, using male models in its runway shows and campaigns.
While Miu Miu executives and creatives declined to comment for this article, a representative said it considered its collections “gender-neutral”.
“I wasn’t paying super close attention, because it was a women’s show,” said Lawrence Schlossman, a host of the fashion podcast Throwing Fits.
Schlossman said he probably first noticed Miu Miu when ASAP Rocky wore the brand, introducing it to a wider male audience.
“These guys aren’t doing a gender-bending thing,” he said. “They’re wearing polos. A piece of clothing is just a piece of clothing.”
There’s also a certain amount of insider cachet to Miu Miu among men that gives it social capital, he said.
“It is dope to be the guy that’s in the jacket that the average person is like, ‘Oh, that’s Carhartt,’ but you know that it’s the one big size from the store of the coolest women’s brand in the world,” he said.
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We’ve come a long way from the days when Kanye West, now known as Ye, and Pharrell Williams made headlines by wearing items by Celine, when its former designer Phoebe Philo was making women’s apparel exclusively.
Since then, some men have toyed with the gender binary in fashion.
Williams has worn Chanel, which also doesn’t officially make menswear, as have Kendrick Lamar and South Korean actor Park Seo-joon.
Men including Oscar Isaac and David Harbour have worn skirts from Thom Browne. And younger consumers who are ambivalent about gendered clothing have inspired designers including Telfar, Helmut Lang and Eckhaus Latta to design unisex collections.
Drew Mac, 32, a musician and producer, has bought a few items, including a polo shirt, and is planning to look at Miu Miu’s Autumn/Winter collection when it arrives in stores.
“We’re making progress, but womenswear is usually more interesting,” he said. “They can call it whatever they want. If it fits me, it’s for me.” – The New York Times
