#SuzyCouture: Miu Miu – Horse Race With A Hidden Agenda

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Miuccia Prada's collection for Miu Miu Club 2020 was presented at the Hippodrome d’Auteuil racecourse in Paris, and took much of its sporty inspiration from the Ascot scene with Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady

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With her country doing a political turn to the far right and her husband and sons mad for competing on the ocean waves, was it so surprising that Miuccia Prada should have turned conservative and sporty? But, inevitably, the ‘conventional’ Miu Miu collection came with a twist

On the hallowed ground of the Hippodrome d’Auteuil and its jockey club, frisky horses raced across the rich green grass, even if the current European heat wave demanded that the marathon ended – for the fortunate animals – with a cold shower on the lawns.

For Miu Miu Club 2020, jockey caps peaked out from blowsy hats, riffing on Cecil Beaton's designs for My Fair Lady

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“It’s about playing with conservatism,” said Prada of both the venue and the collection, which took elements of Audrey Hepburn at the Ascot racecourse in “My Fair Lady” but added a cheeky, sexual angle with race caps worn under fancy hats and a focus on legs. That meant a loooong stretch of bare skin from big, tailored shorts down to platform-soled cork sandals.

Platform cork heels punctuating the sporty ensembles from Miu Miu Club 2020

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It was not quite Meghan Markle’s Eliza Doolittle parade in June 2018 at Ascot with the British Royal in-laws, but rather a deft mix of old school and zany couture – as in a plunge-neck, full-sleeved cotton blouse worn with leather shorts leading down to sports shoes and socks.

Miu Miu Club 2020

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Miu Miu Club 2020

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‘Perverse’ is a word intrinsically attached to Prada, and so it seemed in this meld of modern sportswear, in which a sleek leather jacket was paired with a prim, long-sleeved dress with an ancient Roman horse and chariot print.

“Between the America’s Cup and my children raised with football, I had to do sporty,” the designer said, referring to her husband Patrizio Bertelli and his long-term involvement in the yachting competition. Her son, Lorenzo Bertelli, 31, has recently become the company’s digital strategist as well as focusing on his own dream as a competitive racecar driver.

Miuccia Prada takes a victory lap at the end of her Miu Miu Club 2020 show at the Hippodrome d'Auteuil

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Miuccia Prada has now got down to an art form the meld of conventional clothing with the quirky theme of each season. For this ‘racecourse’ collection that meant references to checked jockey sweaters and formal double-breasted blazers, while the white collars – classic or plunging open to the rib cage – gave a modern, sexual look. Tailoring with a tease would be a neat description of this inter-season Miu Miu race for young fillies.

The Miu Miu Club 2020 front row, from left, Beanie Feldstein, Kaitlyn Dever, Mackenzie Foy and guest, Taylor Russell, Aja Naomi King and Lila Moss

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