The Importance of Miu Miu’s Women’s Tales
Since 2011, luxury fashion brand Miu Miu has been creating “Women’s Tales,” which is a series of short films that are all directed by women. According to i-D, when it was first started by Miuccia Prada, it was the first women only platform at the Venice Film Festival. Every year, the brand funds and shows two shorts films by two female directors at the festival. Additionally, the films have panels and Q&As after showings of the films. Since its start, it has provided a platform and space for female directors to express themselves and be creative through their craft.
The 2016 Women’s Tales film “Seed” directed by Naomi Kwase Photo: Leslie Kee Via The Cut
Platforms like Women's Tales are important avenues for Hollywood to promote and praise. Women are continuously underrepresented in Hollywood, especially when it comes to directors, screenwriters, etc. Hollywood is still a male dominated industry and men take up most higher up positions. When women do direct films, it is harder to get funding for said films. According to an annual Hollywood Diversity report done by UCLA in 2022, women made up about 22% of directors and 33% of film writers and for women of color, it is even lower than that. In addition to that, during awards season, women are less likely to get nominated for the director and screenwriter categories.
A Showing of Women’s Tales film “Nightwalk” directed by Malgorzata Szumowska Photo: Darian DiCanno Via Vogue
The Venice Film Festival gets a lot of press and accolades every year and is a great place for female directors to have their work shown. Each film touches on various nuanced topics through a female lens. Of course, each film features garments from various Miu Miu collections with directors matching the mood and colors of each collection to the feelings of their films. Miu Miu’s clothing is a part of the stories on screen and the directors direct with the garments in mind. With female directors such as Ava DuVernay and Zoe Cassavetes, these films have gained recognition and merged the film and fashion worlds. These films can create visual aspects for Miu Miu’s collections. Clothing is a part of the storytelling and shapes the stories and characters.
A 2020 showing of the film “Nightwalk” directed by Malgorzata Szumowska Photo: Darian DiCianno Via Vogue
Verde Visconti, who oversees the Women’s Tales project and is Prada’s head of communications said about the project, “Women’s Tales is a project that is dear to the whole company. Mrs. Prada is really behind it and adores the fact that we can give space and creative freedom to all these amazing women,” she said. “The urgency of collaborating has always been at the centre of Mrs Prada’s work, she decided to create this program in order to find a concrete way of investigating, through the gaze of talented directors, the world of femininity and vanity and what it means today. I like to think that we are collecting stories that these directors wanted to tell and had not found the place to do so.”
Director Naomi Kwase on the set of her 2016 Women’s Tales film “Seed” directed by Photo: Leslie Kee Via The Cut
Platforms like Women’s Tales are important for both the film and fashion industries. With the increased demand and want for diverse stories and representation, films that focus and are created by women are more important than ever. Various women want to see their authentic experiences and feelings on screen and want to hear about these experiences from female directors and screenwriters.
