The New Miu Miu Girl Doesn’t Wear Pants, and Pauline Chalamet Is Into It

At last week’s Miu Miu fall 2023 show, models walked in kitten heels with thin buckle straps crossed at the toes. And while most guests were focused on the fact that the hair was undone, with nerdy glasses askew—as if everyone on the runway had just left a secret rendezvous at the library—actress Pauline Chalamet couldn’t help but notice that all the models’ shoe buckles were undone.

Over the phone a couple days after the show, she tells me about her favorite looks: a sheer green cardigan worn over a sweater top with blooming flower embellishments, bedazzled underwear styled without pants, a not-quite-a-briefcase-but-not-quite-a-purse bag hanging off the arm of a big bad coat, and, of course, the shoes. “I noticed that a lot of the buckles on the shoes were undone, and I thought, That is definitely going to come into fashion,” she told me while laughing. “But if I walk in the street with buckles undone, I would fall on my face! I would probably just modify the look for myself by fastening them.”

“Mrs. Prada has managed to create something that is much more than just new designs season after season. It’s an aesthetic. I feel like there’s a lot to learn from her.”

But even if she would alter the look with some necessary practicality, Chalamet understands why a Miu Miu girl wouldn’t. Being a Miu Miu girl is like being in a film: Every garment she wears is an essential piece of the plot. She doesn’t buckle her shoes, because she’s in a rush, and because she exists in an alternate universe where she’d never fall. She reminds us of ourselves, running out the door 10 minutes later than expected, but in a mythical way that could only exist on a screen. “Part of me imagines myself in a movie when I’m sitting at a fashion show,” Chalamet explains.

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Chalamet wore the brand’s popular Wander bag to the show but also had her eyes on a new fall style. “There was one bag that I absolutely loved. It’s so cool when you go to shows where you think, ‘Oh, yes, that thing could be mine! That could be a part of the style that I already naturally have.’”

It’s funny to hear Chalamet say that she doesn’t consider fashion “her industry” or that her first Miu Miu invite two years ago felt like “being asked to sit with the cool kids,” because she so clearly is the kind of person Mrs. Prada designs for. Chalamet is a cinephile (Miu Miu’s short film anthology, Women’s Tales, is one of her favorite things the brand does) and naturally introspective. She approached the spectacle of the most recent show like you would a script. “The Miu Miu show was an example of how you are meant to just be in the clothes,” she says. “It makes you wonder … who is the woman in Miu Miu? And what do they walk like? How do they act?”

“I think Miu Miu is rock ’n’ roll chic elegant. It’s almost intimidatingly cool. That’s why at the fitting I thought, ‘Oh, my God! I’m going to try to be a character who can wear this.’”

When picking out her outfit for the show—a sheer dress with short briefs and a bralette peeking out underneath—Chalamet asked the same kinds of questions. Originally, she was going to go for something more in line with what she wears normally, but she had her nagging doubts. “I keep thinking, Should I just put this character on?” She did.

“The show really felt like … a show! I mean ... the hair! The way people were looking! I’m in awe of how the models were walking. It was almost like a mix of going to an art gallery and the theater. I felt like I was assisting a spectacle.”

Miu Miu’s appeal is the way the clothes seem to suspend you from reality, while still providing a uniform for going to the library or the deli or a fashion show. This idea felt especially prevalent in this recent collection, which prompted online commenters to point out that many of the oversized, layered hoodie looks reminded them of what they wear to get a bagel on a Sunday. Then there were the pantsless bedazzled underwear looks, which made people think not of themselves, but of who they want to be. They were also some of Chalamet’s favorites: “It feels like Mrs. Prada is saying, ‘You have a body—own your body!’ Because why not? Why not wear bedazzled underwear with tights and loafers and a button-up top? It’s the female gaze of fashion!”

“I loved how it broke the rules and put the underwear where we can see it with shirts tucked into stockings. Of course, it’s Mrs. Prada! So it is done in the most elegant way possible.”

Mrs. Prada provides us with the attainable and the aspirational, looks you can easily re-create and ones that make you approach your wardrobe with a fresh set of eyes. “The looks take a risk, but in a way that stays very elegant and chic,” Chalamet points out. “When I saw the awesome bedazzled underwear, I thought, I want to wear that! And yet, weeks ago, if I were to open my underwear drawer and find a sexy pair of underwear, I never would have thought to do that!”

“At the show, it felt like every single thing was part of the bigger whole. There was an art installation by Geumhyung Jeong. And then, there were these beautiful people that were walking so impressively, wearing the most elegantly chic and messy, simple out-of-bed outfits. There was so much happening in the best way.”

We agree that once spring finally arrives, the look will be everywhere, even if the collection doesn’t drop until fall. “There’s a messy chicness to it, and I think that resonates with the way the world is right now,” Chalamet says before mentioning the leggings-as-pants controversies of the 2010s. “Now those people are going to say, ‘Those still aren’t pants! They’re tights!’” But in 2023, the streets are just a stage for Miu Miu, and many of us, including Chalamet, are more than willing to play the part.

Tara Gonzalez

Tara Gonzalez is the Senior Fashion Editor at Harper’s Bazaar. Previously, she was the style writer at InStyle, founding commerce editor at Glamour, and fashion editor at Coveteur.