I Bought the Miu Miu-Inspired Fashion Nova Set So You Don’t Have To

Welcome to Trend Cemetery, a new bi-weekly column where our Senior Editor Taylore Scarabelli tries to make sense of meaningless micro-trends, luxury fashion, and street style in the age of social media. This time, she reviews the Spring/Summer 22 must-have Miu Miu micro-mini skirt and an aspirational look from Fashion Nova. 

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What is it about this season’s Miu Miu micro-mini skirt that has the internet so inflamed? On a rack, the skirt looks relatively innocuous, like a scrap of fabric sliced from your dad’s work chinos. But on a body, and accompanied by a crop top (as the brand intended), the skirt is sexy and daring, especially for those used to seeing more conservative hemlines on the runways. 

When the Miu Miu SS22 show first aired, viewers were put off by the absence of plus-sized models on the catwalk. But critics didn’t stop there—instead, many decided that the silhouettes in the collection were to blame for the thin models, as if low-rise skirts and pants were a curse against women, meant only for a size zero consumer. These well-meaning critiques further entrenched the policing of plus-sized bodies by suggesting that only skinny women had a right to bare midriffs. Thankfully, this theory was recently debunked by Paloma Elsesser, who is winning the battle of the Miu Miu micro-mini editorials with her recent i-D cover story. 

Yet people are still outraged by the micro-mini skirt. It probably has something to do with it fact that it consistently pops up on our feeds, but we can’t get our hands on it yet (a wave of editorials, DIY tutorials, and knock-offs have flooded the internet, but the real skirt isn’t available for purchase in-stores or online). But why do we want it so bad in the first place? It’s not just that the skirt is sartorially and politically scandalous and thus an attractive form of consumer rebellion, but that the collection itself marked a shift in the high fashion sphere. In fact, the brand’s SS22 show seemed like the first time, in a long time, that we’d seen a new point of view at Miu Miu—or at any major house. Put simply: the looks were exciting, accessible, and a slap in the face to good taste. 

Perhaps we should thank Steven Miesel’s Vogue Italia “Shrink to Fit” editorial from 2010, or the styling of Lotta Volkova (the fashion industry’s it-girl responsible for the outrage-inducing Y2K-inspired looks at both Miu Miu and Blumarine). Either way, I’m still praying at the altar of Mrs. Prada. That’s why, when a rage-inducing meme-slash-screenshot of a Fashion Nova knockoff of the micro-mini made the rounds yesterday, I purchased the look immediately (I even paid for express shipping). It looked cute fresh out of the package, but the Fashion Nova fit wrinkled within minutes, and both the skirt and top were too big for my boy-like body, an ironic twist of fate that wasn’t lost on me. But that doesn’t mean I’m giving up on my Miu Miu mini fantasy. DIY Dickie skirt, here I come.