Miu Miu's SS27 is something new, something old, and something sporty With special appearances by Olivia Colman, Gigi Hadid, Emma Corrin, Noah Jupe, and many more

There is something about Miu Miu that makes it appealing even to a general audience — people who know next to nothing about fashion. Perhaps it's because, for SS27, Miuccia Prada's second label has chosen to focus on the everyday wardrobe: jeans, sneakers, and an imaginary world of career women on the run, moving between the office, the gym, the bookshop, an evening vernissage, and a change of season. For perhaps the first time, all of Miu Miu's codes — those developed over the past five years and the deliberately messy ones built up over decades — come together in a single collection. A melting pot that perfectly captures what the brand is today, and above all who it wants to speak to.

The feeling is one of watching several wardrobes layered on top of one another, as though the same person had dressed while moving through completely different contexts within the space of a few hours. The starting point is often ordinary: Prince of Wales check blazers, V-neck sweaters, shirts, jeans, pleated skirts, and sweatpants. So the office suit ends up over a tiny top, the tailored jacket meets a British schoolgirl tartan skirt, while running shorts are worn with heels, structured bags, and small crystal-encrusted tops.

It is probably here that the ugly chic Miuccia Prada built long before Miu Miu became synonymous with micro-skirts and ballet flats makes its return. There is something deliberately démodé about the brown blazers, the geometric prints, the heavy-framed glasses, and the knee-length skirts — a librarian chic aesthetic that seems to reclaim a certain idea of bourgeois femininity only to constantly disrupt it. A vision of luxury that is slightly brazen and tinged with a retro streak, here made to coexist with worn-in shoes, gym shorts, and pieces that already seem to belong to someone's life.

Sometimes all it takes is a pair of New Balance sneakers — part of a new brand collaboration — under a pleated skirt; other times, a pair of Wrangler jeans, also a collab, decorated with laces and cords that break up their classic look. At the opposite end of the spectrum are the babydolls, the tiny tops, and the more overtly decorative elements. Crystals, embroidery, and appliqués are used almost like fragments, displaced from the territories where we would expect to find them and applied to far more everyday forms. A jewelled bodice ends up over a technical running top, a precious trim transforms a sporty top, while silk bows are isolated from the rest of the garment until they become practically a piece in their own right.

Yet if everything is retro, what stops the consumer from digging out a Prince of Wales check from their grandparents' wardrobe or a python-print bag from the vintage shop around the corner? And if the point is to make the intellectual coexist with sportswear, why do it through Miu Miu rather than going straight to a sportswear brand? At first glance, SS27 looks like the perfect apotheosis of Miuccia Prada's aesthetic philosophy — but also an incredibly fertile breeding ground for thousands of TikToks built around replicating the looks with whatever is already in the wardrobe. It is a powerful testament to the brand's influence, and perhaps a less reassuring one from a commercial standpoint. Whether this impression will hold remains to be seen; in the meantime, one thing already seems fairly clear: next summer will be the summer of midi skirts worn with dad shoes.