Miu Miu

Miu Miu began in 1993 as Miuccia Prada's more personal, experimental line, named after the nickname her family had called her since childhood. Where Prada was cerebral and severe, Miu Miu was looser and more instinctive: thrift-shop prints, schoolgirl references, odd proportions and a deliberately unpolished sense of youth. It was first shown in Milan, and its early collections were priced below the main line, aimed at a younger customer.

Through the late 1990s and 2000s the label grew into a house in its own right, with its own accessories, eyewear, shoes and, from 2015, fragrance. In 2006 Miu Miu moved its womenswear shows to Paris, a signal that it was to be judged among the great houses rather than as a diffusion line, and a menswear line ran for some years before being discontinued. In 2011 the house began Women's Tales, a series of short films commissioned from women directors including Agnès Varda, Chloë Sevigny and Ava DuVernay, which has become one of fashion's most respected cultural projects.

The 2020s brought a dramatic rise. In 2020 Miu Miu Upcycled reworked vintage garments into new pieces, an early statement on circularity from a major house. For spring 2022 a low-slung, cropped pleated miniskirt and cut-off top became the most widely shared look of the season and a symbol of the label's ability to set the tone for an entire generation. Ballet flats, polo shirts, knickers worn as outerwear and a steady parade of actors on the runway followed, alongside the Wander, Arcadie and Aventure bags.

Sales followed the attention. In 2023 the Prada Group reported a surge in Miu Miu revenue, and growth continued at a pace that outstripped almost every other luxury brand through 2024, when its spring show was voted best of the year at the Impression Awards. In 2025 it reopened in London with a large store at 150 New Bond Street, a building the Prada family holding agreed to buy. The label also hosts literary and cultural programmes during Paris Fashion Week.

Miuccia Prada has remained the label's sole creative director throughout, designing it alongside Prada itself. Miu Miu remains her most direct expression: a place where taste is tested, where what seems naive turns out to be pointed, and where the house's founder still sets the agenda more than thirty years after giving it her name.