Down a quiet side street behind Milan’s illustrious Teatro alla Scala sits the Circolo Filologico. As is so often the case in this city, an austere facade conceals a cultural gem. The Circolo, Milan’s oldest linguistic and literary association, is devoted to the study of global languages and civilisations.
Recently, it played host to a quietly remarkable gathering. For two days in April, the space became home to the Miu Miu Literary Club – an ongoing initiative by the Italian fashion house exploring womanhood, learning and literary legacy. Coinciding with the annual design event Salone del Mobile, the programme – titled A Woman’s Education – drew crowds that stretched around the block.
In an age of buzzy brand activations and fleeting fashion moments, the Literary Club felt like a breath of fresh air. Inside the library’s book-lined rooms – a comforting throwback to another era – two panel discussions unfolded, including Simone de Beauvoir: The Power of Girlhood.
The panels explored how girlhood matures into womanhood, how autonomy is shaped and how desire is expressed. The conversations were as powerful as they were intimate, featuring an eclectic line-up that included Irish novelist Naoise Dolan, American writers Sarah Manguso and Lauren Elkin, plus Booker Prize winner Geetanjali Shree.
Co-chaired by British curator and writer Lou Stoppard and American spoken-word artist Kai-Isaiah Jamal, the discussions were accompanied by readings by Congolese-Italian model Cindy Bruna and actress Millie Brady, adding a lyrical cadence to the proceedings.
Elsewhere, in a larger space where a digital ticker tape broadcast “Miu Miu Literary Club” in an endless loop, performances by Lauren Duffus and Joy Crookes played to a standing-room-only crowd. An open-door policy stood in welcome contrast to the exclusivity typically associated with fashion and design weeks. This wasn’t an event designed for the few – it felt democratic and elegantly subversive.
For Miuccia Prada, the house’s founder and philosophical heart, the initiative is a natural extension of a decades-long career steeped in cultural commentary. Since founding Miu Miu in 1993 – named for her childhood nickname – Prada has imbued the brand with intellectual nuance and instinctive cool, consistently weaving in references to art, literature and ideology. Her reverence for knowledge was clear in a digitally streamed conversation in 2020, marking the first co-designed collection with Raf Simons, where she urged the audience to “study, study, study”.
This year’s Literary Club centred on two influential yet contrasting feminist voices: Simone de Beauvoir, the French existentialist, whose The Inseparables explores the fragile reality of female friendship, as well as Japanese author Fumiko Enchi, whose work, The Waiting Years, delves into the quiet constraints placed on women through tradition and marriage.
Of the choice of authors, Prada explained they were selected for their willingness to challenge the status quo and illuminate how precious learning remains. “We try to raise awareness on the issue of women’s education today. How do we teach young girls concepts such as self-determination? How do we teach them to become the independent women of the future?”
The idea of a luxury fashion house sponsoring such a discussion is not without irony, and the panel did not shy away from that. Italian author Veronica Raimo spoke candidly of her own conflicting feelings – of squatting as a student while reading Albert Camus, and now being invited to speak under the auspices of a high-fashion brand.
Her inclusion – critical, authentic – spoke volumes. And perhaps that’s the point. As Sarah Manguso observed, “Miu Miu took two radical feminist novels and made them the centrepiece of a Milan Design Week party.” A feat that, in lesser hands, might have felt like a sales ploy. Here, it felt sincere.
Lou Stoppard reflected on the resonance of the moment, and on how fragile societal truths can be. “I think it’s really important that brands like Miu Miu – that have such a profile and such a reach – are putting time and energy into spotlighting amazing female writers of the past, and championing interesting contemporary writers. We are definitely at a moment of certain histories repeating themselves, so I think there’s something really important about this line between past and present.”
Beyond the Literary Club, Miu Miu continues to invest in female creativity through its Women’s Tales film series. Launched in 2011, it commissions female directors to tell their own stories with the sole caveat that characters wear the house’s clothing. It’s a reminder that the brand’s cultural reach extends far beyond the runway.
Indeed, Prada’s support of the arts places her in historic company. The Medici of Renaissance Florence famously used their wealth and status to elevate artists, philosophers, and poets – patronage that enabled Brunelleschi, Donatello, Botticelli and Michelangelo to flourish. Botticelli even immortalised them: Madonna of the Magnificat (1481) features Lucrezia de’ Medici as the titular figure, with a youthful Lorenzo the Magnificent beside her. Perhaps Miuccia Prada hopes to do something similar – through fashion, literature and conversation.
As Lauren Elkin, who translated de Beauvoir’s The Inseparables, observed: “You’re not born a woman; you become one. That process – of becoming – is still ongoing. And that’s what we’re talking about.”
