Miu Miu’s Playful, Provocative Literary Club at Milan Design Week Was the Hottest Ticket in Town

There are plenty of things you can expect to do at Milan Design Week: coo over a sumptuous sofa or two, peer inside a jewel-box apartment usually closed to the public, drink an ungodly number of negronis. Something slightly less expected? Watching dozens of local Milanese, young and old, perching themselves upon rows of benches laid out in a deeply atmospheric (and pleasingly dusty) historic library. And then listening intently as model Cindy Bruna read an excerpt from a lesser-known 1957 Japanese novel, in which a senior official’s wife is dispatched to find a young concubine for her husband. As Bruna closed the pages of her book and turned to the group of writers lining the sofas next to her, signaling them to begin their panel discussion of the text, you could have heard a pin drop.

Photo: T Space

This genteel environment, however, was exactly where I found myself on Thursday afternoon, attending the second edition of the Miu Miu Literary Club. Staged over two days within the Circolo Filologico Milanese, a nonprofit cultural institution dedicated to foreign languages and civilizations, the event was anchored by a pair of panel talks in the library that soon spilled over into the building’s wrought iron staircases and wood-paneled corridors. Eventually, the smartly-dressed crowd (Miu Miu logos abounded) gathered within the vast colonnaded atrium at the heart of the building, sipping spritzes underneath an LED ticker spelling the names of the afternoon’s headliners circled above. The performances that followed came from across a spectrum of disciplines—sets from musicians Joy Crookes and Pip Millett, spoken-word performances from writers Jess Cole and Kai-Isiah Jamal—but were all united by their interest in using words to explore the boundaries of womanhood. (In truth, the event’s mid-week timing was a tonic: after four days of trudging from showroom to showroom and accruing a truly eye-popping step count in the process, it was a delight just to sit down for a bit and soak up something genuinely brain-enriching.)

Jess Cole.

Photo: T Space

Talking to Olga Campofreda, the London-based, Italian-born writer and researcher who has curated the Literary Club lineup on both occasions, it’s clear that the project was very much a collaboration with Mrs. Prada herself. A few years ago, the designer reached out to Campofreda directly after reading an article she’d written about her experiences as a teenager growing up in early 2000s Italy, and her frustrations at the male-dominated literary canon presented to her while at school. “Of course, when Mrs. Prada is inviting you to do such a thing, you don't say no,” Campofreda said on the first day of the event, smiling. “It’s been a dream for me.”