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Miu Miu

MILAN, March 4, 2003
By Sarah Mower
If Miu Miu is Prada's kid sister, she's squaring up for a bout of sibling rivalry for fall. She's all grown up, and she wants the tweeds and the furs and the raincoats—and the posh croc bag with the head scarf tied to it. If big sis is getting into menswear, she'll have a piece of that, too, and some of those silk dresses and gloves for good measure.

The Miu Miu act isn't a literal duplication of the main line, of course, but it catches the same spirit of classic dressing, inheriting quite a few of Prada's greatest hits, as well as some cuter fillips. The fur tippets from Prada's famous ’40s collection reappeared here, twisted into scarves and capes. The house styling trick of cinching a waist with an unmatched leather belt turned up on coats, cardigans and dresses. Last winter's great rubberized mac and tweedy pencil skirts made an encore too.

This collection is all about filling shops with inexpensive, fast-moving items, and even if a lot of the ideas are Prada recycling her own vintage design, it's still apace with her current thinking. It doesn't give the thought-through luxe of its elder, but it does have witty ways of imitating. Instead of a full fur lining inside a sweater or jacket, an extended furry collar is tucked inside things to fake the effect. There's the key gauntlet glove, but in gray mohair knit, not croc. Good buys abound: well-cut mannish suits, wing-tip shoes and eye-catching pink or red houndstooth coats. As Miuccia Prada has always asserted, Miu Miu isn't a watered-down diffusion line. These sisters know when to share and when not to—so everyone goes home happy.

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