Behold, a very real text I received from my mother recently, after I sent her a photo of my outfit: “Chic. Buy an iron.” It’s a recurring plea, but I’m hesitant. Don’t get me wrong, I love impeccable tailoring and a crisp shirt as much as the next person, but I also worship at the altar of Miuccia Prada, the patron saint of rumpled clothing.
There’s an intrinsic chicness to haphazardly wrinkled clothes. It signifies a life well-lived, too fast-paced to possibly take time out of the day to care about the state of a cotton shirt or silk skirt. A rumpled woman has places to go and people to see! The wearer isn’t too precious about their clothing—that they actually wear the pieces they own instead of preserving them all in a museum-like encasement.
Mrs. Prada also proves that the state of one’s clothing doesn’t need to cast an aspersion on their character. Nobody would dare tell such a revered figure in fashion as Mrs. Prada that her personal proclivity for creased skirts indicates messiness. No, in fact, it only underscores her genius as a designer: someone who turns against women’s domestic expectations—ironing, laundry—and weaves that stance into her brands’ DNA. Why, on top of everything else, would one press a skirt or a blouse?
Take a look at Miu Miu’s fall 1998 collection. Tops and skirts look as though they’ve been picked up off the floor, like the wearer has chosen to sleep over waking up early to iron their clothes before rushing out the door. This is no passing fad, either. Mrs. Prada continues to repeat this motif over and over again. For Prada’s spring 2023 show, she sent models down the runway with well-worn creases. And she practices what she preaches. When she took her bow alongside Raf Simons after Prada’s spring 2024 show in September, Mrs. Prada emerged in a creased brown skirt—as if it was sitting, folded neatly in a drawer, waiting for this very moment.
Over the course of her storied career, Mrs. Prada has managed to find other avenues of portraying this sartorial sense of hurdling through life. Take, for instance, the overflowing purses at Miu Miu’s spring 2024 show.
So, next time your dress sits on the floor of your room for too long, take a cue from Miuccia Prada. Get that extra 10 minutes of sleep; forgo your domestic duties. Life is too short and too precious to spend hunched over an ironing board!
