A few years ago in, Italian womenswear label Miu Miu initiated an ongoing series of short films featuring all female directors using the platform to tell captivating and pertinent stories from a female perspective. Each year, the brand commissions and releases two films for both their summer and winter collections. This year, for their 16th installation of the series, the brand has tapped Saudia Arabia’s first female filmmaker Haifaa al-Mansour to direct their freshly-released film entitled “The Wedding Singer’s Daughter.” The film is set during the 1980’s in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and speaks on the strict gender segregation rules of Saudi Weddings.
The storyline features a cast of women draped in their traditional black abayas driving to the hall of the wedding location, and reveals the sparkle of the glamorous heels, dazzling dresses and wild hair once they arrive and are in an all female presence. As they prepare for this celebration, all eyes are on the wedding singer to keep it going until the electricity suddenly cuts out. Mumbles begin and guests start to complain, the singer experiences a slight panic until she is saved by an unlikely heroine: her young daughter who manages to save her mother’s dignity. “Weddings are the actual mirror of society in Saudi Arabia: segregated, fragmented, along gender and class. I wanted to tell the story of those people and capture that tenderness,” says the director, “It’s very important for women to tell their stories, and sometimes it’s hard. In the film, the daughter uses her nimble mind to quickly solve the problem just like an independent film-director. For me the little girl represents the future, and the future belongs to the outsiders.” The film can currently be seen along with the brand’s repertoire online MiuMiu.com.
Bumbags are back, but Miu Mui has made so much better than the average offer. Introducing the Miu Rider: ostensibly your everyday, hip swinging, but rendered with such decadence and craft that it is elevated to something else entirely.
Just in time for London Fashion Week, Miu Miu is offering customers the chance to personalise their bags with a large selection of free-spritited badges. Calling the project ‘CustoMIUzation’, it is a novel and interactive idea which enables shoppers to truly make a piece of the brand their own.
The choice of how to customise the madras leather and denim bags is completely at the discretion of the customer, with the patches on offer including the now iconic Miu Miu stars, varsity-style motifs as seen on the AW16 catwalk and adorable wording such as LOVE, KISS and FOREVER.
The process of adorning each bag will be carried out by a dedicated artisan, flown in especially from Italy, and take around 30 minutes to complete. With up to 12 badges to add, one suspects that the majority of the time will be spent deciding on the look to go for. As ever, Miu Miu has kept exclusivity at the forefront of their minds, and as such, there will only be a limited number of bags available. So don’t delay…
Miu Miu ‘CustoMIUzation’ will take place from the 16th September at the Miu Miu New Bond Street store for a limited period only.
The eleventh instalment in Miu Miu’s Women’s Tales series comes from Camera D’Or-winning filmmaker Naomi Kawase, and is called Seed.
To celebrate the premiere of the latest in Miu Miu’s pioneering series of films, the brand held an exclusive screening in New York’s EN Japanese Brasserie on Hudson Street last week.
Guests included actress Emma Greenwell (pictured main – who appears in the latest issue of the Twin book) as well as Miu Miu’s spring campaign girl Julia Garner, Emily Ratajkowski, Harley Viera-Newton and Zosia Mamet.
Miu Miu describe Seed as: “a sentimental portrait of Asian femininity,” adding that Kawase depicts it as “primitive, primal and erotic at the same time”.
The film is a whimsical and poetic journey of Sakura Ando’s character from Japan’s Nara to Tokyo, set to an evocative soundtrack composed by Skanknation.
The film, of course, features Miu Miu’s latest seasonal offering, but as with all of the others in this unique series, focusses on more than that. It is about a strong female narrative. It is at its core, a story told by women, and resoundingly for them.
This year at the Venice Film Festival on 30 August, fashion giant Miu Miu screened its Women’s Tales project, paying homage to talented women of the silver screen. The series of eight short films were directed by up-and-comers like Zoe Cassavetes, Lucrecia, and Miranda July. These fashionable featurettes, with their wacky but pensive subjects, are all accessorised by beautiful clothing and fabrics from Miu Miu (of course).
The latest instalment is Somebody, by writer, filmmaker and artist Miranda July. July wrote for the first issue of our very own Twin magazine, and has been going from strength to strength ever since.
Somebody accompanies the release of the eponymous app, a new messaging service that enables you to say something difficult to someone you love. Her ironic, witty and touching short film includes a tragedy featuring a sick mother, a devastating break-up, and a bizarre ménage-a-trois between two prison guards and pot plant named Anthony.
This quirky analysis of society’s hunger for communication and technology feels fantastically surreal, but with a striking element of truth.
Miu Miu turned to Inez and Vinoodh to shoot their Spring/Summer 2014 campaign staring Elle Fanning, Bella Heathcote, Lupita Nyong’o, Elizabeth Olsen. They also asked the photographers and collaborators to create a fashion film for the collection, showcasing a techno interpretation that is both colourful and playful, highlighting the key motifs from the line. Featuring the same four Hollywood talents as the print campaign, the film shows the four actresses in their imaginary bedrooms with music by Porter Robinson.
If anyone can make the Seventies look modern again, it would have to be Chloë Sevigny.
Clad in psychedlic print silk shirts, boyfriend cut blazers, mirror-appliqué minidresses and chunky loafers, the queen of indie cinema and quirky fashion stars as the face of Miu Miu’s A/W 12 campaign and short film, shot by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott. It may be Miuccia Prada’s fine tuning in cut, fabric and colour or just simply the fact that the 37-year-old actress can pull off anything and everything she wears, but despite its references there is not an ounce of retro stiffness to this collection.
Backed by the nonchalant tunes of American pop duo Phanotgram, the accompanyng video exudes the same wonderfully laissez-faire attitude of coolness. Having previously fronted the brand’s S/S 96 campaign, it becomes clear that even 16 years on, Sevigny’s still got it.
Miu Miu’s new flagship store in the heart of Toyko is a three tiered carousel packed with the kind of playful luxury that we’ve come to expect of Prada’s little sister. Sugary handbags and shoes jostle like bright jewels on gilt shelves in the newly opened Ginza Echogoya district shop.
Between the damask sofas, gold framed mirrors and crystal counters there’s no mistaking the opulence. But the Miu Miu girl has always worn luxury with an independent spirit and the store is more than a shopping experience, it’s an immaculate interpretation of the brand’s aesthetic vision. Prepare to lose yourself.
Twitter
Tumblr
YouTube
Facebook
Instagram
