Miu Miu's Feminist Fashion Statement at Art Basel Paris

However, there was an unexpected player who decided to participate as well. Taking place in the Palais d’Iéna— the 1939 building which has hosted Miu Miu fashion shows for the last several years— Miuccia Prada staged her own five-day exhibition. “Tales and Tellers” is an exploration of feminine narratives through the aesthetic eye of Miu Miu. 

The Italian fashion brand, a sponsor for Art Basel Paris’ public program, has been collaborating with well-recognized artists for the last decade and has brought them all together on screens, big and small, for the show. 

The space, filled with actors and the many screens, displays the brand’s previously commissioned pieces. Brainchild of the interdisciplinary Polish artist Goshka Macuga and curated by the Director of MACBA, Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Elvira Dyangani Ose, the project brings together artists and filmmakers to discuss the themes of storytelling and womanhood.

Open to public from tomorrow until October 20th at Palais d’Iéna in Paris, “Tales & Tellers” is Miu Miu’s special project conceived by interdisciplinary artist Goshka Macuga and convened by Elvira Dyangani Ose, bringing (cont) https://t.co/nZF4EXbilr pic.twitter.com/5NKjdoNZDw

— Miu Miu (@MIUMIUofficial) October 15, 2024

Part digital archive, part performance installation, the exhibition seeks to portray multi-layered experiences. By assigning one actor per film, audiences get to contemplate both narratives as they take place simultaneously. 

Cécile B. Evans, commissioned by Miu Miu to create moving image work for their Fall/Winter 2024 runway show, has a character, RECEPTION, that can be found on-screen in addition to the gallery space. 

Her work, often interested in ritual, replica, staging, and symmetry, seems to question the impact of digital intervention in our day to day experience and how that may define our immediate future. The question of simulation is constantly reiterated and speaks to the complex expectations tied to feminine performance. 

As the actors hum, sew, skateboard, put on wigs, and change outfits— all Miu Miu, of course—  the screens play pieces by artists like Zoe Cassavetes, Agnès Varda, Ava DuVernay, Haifaa al-Mansour, Lila Avilés, and Miranda July. 

In total, the series is made up of 27 films and moving image installations, all focused on the feminine condition. Despite towing the line of reading like an advertisement, there is a purposeful desire to humanize these stories within the work. 

Can a female gaze be deployed onto high fashion editorials, which have been defining beauty standards for so long? Are these the steps to initiate something like that? The show seems to enmesh Miu Miu’s aesthetic with something livable and self-aware, not only crossing intertextually with the world of art, but into a philosophical one as well.