Miu Miu has always been a maison that celebrates women, from its catwalk collaborations to its literary ventures. For 32 years the Prada sister label has championed creative conversations exploring ever-transforming ideas of femininity, especially through Women’s Tales, its acclaimed, ongoing anthology series. Women’s Tales supports today’s most profound and original female filmmakers to present their own view of vanity, and the plurality of femininity, through a cutting-edge lens. The goal? To elevate female filmmaking to the centre of contemporary cultural discourse.
Premiering last night at Curzon Mayfair Cinema, Miu Miu unveiled the latest evocative film in the series: Women’s Tales #29, Autobiografia Di Una Borsetta, written and directed by British auteur Joanna Hogg (The Souvenir, 2019, The Eternal Daughter, 2022). “I didn’t hesitate for a millisecond when I got the invite to do the 29th episode of Women’s Tales,” says Hogg. “If I had to choose a brand I love, I would say Miu Miu, because of what Mrs. Prada has done over the course of her life. I always felt privileged to wear her clothes.”
Tapping into a cinematic style that cross-pollinates naturalism with magic surrealism, the idea for the film was born from a book – but not in the way you think. As opposed to adapting a narrative piece of literature for the silver screen, Hogg was thinking of the book The Prop, which she published alongside her friend, the academic John David Rhodes, and the author Elena Gorfinkel. Begging the questions “What are film props?” and “What do they do?” The Prop led Hogg to consider making a prop the protagonist of a story, and for people to form the backdrop. “Miu Miu is a risk-taking brand,” Hogg says, referring to how taking the plunge is an imperative part of her own creative process. “It’s very rare to have the freedom that Women’s Tales gives a filmmaker. At first, I was intimidated by this freedom. Then I said to myself, ‘I’m going to take up the challenge’.”
Considering this, within Autobiografia Di Una Borsetta, a white Miu Miu Wander bag takes centre stage. It’s dirty, beaten up and weathered by time – alone…. What’s its story?
At first, it sits on a rock in Maremma, surrounded by the painterly clouds of a Tuscan sky. Then, although it is mute, it discovers its voice and we watch and listen to the handbag as it recounts its life story. From birth to old age, the bag’s lifetime spans a variety of socially-encoded spaces – from ultramodern factory to sprawling Italian villa to impoverished urban peripheries – and a spectrum of owners, from privileged teenage daughter to working-class assassin. And, as it moves through life, the bag slowly learns what it means to really, truly, be alive.
Autobiografia Di Una Borsetta is available on Miu Miu digital channels and to stream on Mubi globally from February 23. Stay tuned.
Photography courtesy of Miu Miu.
