September 2014|Harper’s BAZAAR| 149DAN & CORINA LECCA. JASON LLOYD-EVANS
I thought the press would treat Miuccia when she was an older designer. The question has stayed
with me, in part because of Patrizio’s touching candour and in part because he obviously had
nothing to fear. When Miuccia returns to the room, I mention my theory that the three most
determined radicals are feminists over the age of 65 – her, Rei Kawakubo and Vivienne Westwood.
What’s the explanation, I wonder. Miuccia’s eyes widen. “That’s true. I never thought about it.
Maybe women are more aware of their problems. We touch every day on our skin.” Yet for all
that, Miuccia has no interest in showing her clothes on older women, or indeed on any body type
other than a model’s. Many people have wondered how she can defend her position. “I don’t have
the courage” to use older models, she says. Really? “Eh, because the fashion world is my job,” she
says with a shrug. “And I have to compromise. I don’t even want to do it – there are not enough
examples of women getting older in a good way. Also, I don’t like to make politics on the runway.
I want to be political in an indirect way.” But then she reveals that she had older women in her
fi rst show. “Because it was new and it came naturally,” she explains. “Now if you put older women
on a runway, it’s a cliché.” Miuccia is naturally competitive, as if it weren’t obvious. She admits to
checking out other designers’ shows online. “For sure, we all look at each other,” she says. “Maybe
it’s not very noble, but it’s like this.” She admires the work of Marc Jacobs and Nicolas Ghesquière,
to name two. Stirring her tea, she adds, “And I feel much more noble when I realise that someone
else has a good show. I’m not super happy, but I respect it. I can’t pretend I don’t care about
competition.” The fact is, it’s diffi cult for a creative person to reconcile all of her confl icts, and
Miuccia, like Rei Kawakubo, essentially doesn’t want to explain everything on the grounds that it
can sound trite. Personally, I feel I’ve come closest to understanding her – what really touches her
and therefore her fashion – when I bring up the autumn/winter 2010 collection, the one withDoutzen Kroes and the dowdy dresses. I tell her about the blog comments, the post-socialist rap,
a lovely thought about “tea and brandy and the kitchen table.” Miuccia looks at me intently;
she seems startled. Then she says, “Yes, the big dress is the memory of peasants, of such huge
humanity, and that is something I really care about, the efforts of women, when they really have
a diffi cult life. In the country, in the fi elds, during the war. Today. The effort of women. It’s really
something that to me is very present. The sufferance of women.” She explains, “When I do
fashion, I don’t want to inject my other knowledge and to look intellectual, but obviously it comes
out. Also, because I am not an intellectual; I am more human. That’s why I have a good relationship
with the most diffi cult artists. Because, at the end, good people are very human.” When I spoke
to Germano, I asked him what Miuccia does for fun. He snorted as if to say, “C’mon, she’s
Italian!” “She has friends from high school,” he says. “She spends time with them – playing cards,
listening to music, watching football. Yes. Like everyone. They play cards until one in the
morning, and they’re screaming. It’s very simple.” Germano adds, “And banal. Why not!” I sense
from Miuccia, the mother of two grown sons (“I’m not allowed to talk about them. They’re so
severe with me!”), that family occasions are a big deal. “The home is always full of people,” she
says. For getaways, she has a small sailboat. She’ll go off alone or with a friend. When I asked
Fabio Zambernardi where she keeps the boat, he replied, “Where the sun is. Mostly south Italy.”
And now our session has come to a close. We have reached the apertivo hour. I ask Miuccia when
she is happiest. “When I have new ideas,” she says a little too quickly. “When I excite myself,
that means I have new ideas.” But the answer doesn’t satisfy her. “For sure, I care more about my
life than my job, but there is nothing I do that is not related to my way of thinking and what
I want,” she says fi nally. “So my life is one. And art and fashion are circulating. I’m anchored to
the ground and to life.”