Miu Miu Spring 2015 RTW Paris Fashion Week Collection

 As a designer and as a person, Miuccia Prada is far from the icy intellectual she is often taken for. And if there is one collection that proves that beyond a shadow of a doubt, it’s today’s fantastic Miu Miu offering. In it, Prada extolled the virtues of the obnoxious brat, the slut, the bad girl-in short, the virtues of Dawn Davenport, played by Divine in John Waters’ Female Trouble, screaming for her cha-cha heels (large bowed mules or gigantic platforms in this case) and unashamedly declaring that she is "a thief and a shitkicker."

Female Trouble’s theme song-the Divine version, and various covers-was one of the key musical accompaniments to the collection. So was the Shangri-Las’ "Past, Present and Future," the spoken-word song by the rebel girl group (and punk inspiration) that is lushly laid over Beethoven’s "Moonlight" sonata. With the use of that song, the depths and the feminist convictions of this collection, and of Prada herself, were also hinted at; "Go out with you? Why not / Do I like to dance? Of course / Take a walk along the beach tonight? I’d love to / But don’t try to touch me, don’t try to touch me / ‘Cause that will never happen again / Shall we dance?"

Here, Miuccia Prada showed the punk brat with the self-deprecating attitude that she really is "I am not such a serious person," she laughed-by almost pastiche-ing her own Prada offering. Just as John Waters admired director Douglas Sirk, Prada plays her own John Waters for Miu Miu, with her Douglas Sirk self in charge of the Prada collection. By undercutting, laughing, and asserting her rebellious form of the feminine in fashion she makes a point for today. As the crowds of young front-row starlets gathered around the designer at the end of the show, you couldn’t help but laugh that they, too, would be dressed divinely like Divine next season. How subversive is that?