The Most Wanted ‘Girl’ in Fashion

Every season, many lovely dresses are shown in many lovely cities. Runways are a montage of opulence — exquisite suits in Paris, sumptuous bags in Milan. It can be beautiful. It can be skull-crushingly boring.

Miu Miu, the prickly little sister brand to Prada, has found a way to not be boring. Models with wind-wrecked hair wear turtlenecks over gem-encrusted underwear. (No pants, obviously.) Their feet? Covered in Band-Aids. Their arms? Weighed down by comically overstuffed totes.

This brand sets trends, like the extreme miniskirts ordered up by its creative director, Miuccia Prada, as a kind of anachronistic joke in October 2021. What if your plain, khaki skirt dropped down your hip bones — exposing your midriff like it’s 2001 — with a hem falling slightly below your genitals?

The joke was a lightning bolt shaped like a dollar sign.

A shopping platform called Lyst maintains a well-regarded list of “fashion’s hottest brands,” compiled from user data, search trends and social media chatter. After the miniskirt collection, Miu Miu joined the list at No. 20. Since mid-2022, it has not left the Top 5.

Hotness begets riches. Back in 2021, Miu Miu reported about 401 million euros in sales. By the end of 2023, that figure grew to nearly 649 million euros. Last week, on July 30, the Prada Group announced that Miu Miu had reached 530 million euros (roughly $579 million) in sales in the first half of 2024. This increase of 93 percent, over the same period last year, comes at a time when similar brands are faltering.

“A significant outperformance,” said Luca Solca, a luxury analyst for Bernstein.

Yet as much as Miu Miu’s growth is a success story, it is also a bit mysterious.