But you can spy an element of boyish charm, too. Although the dedicated menswear line was dissolved around 2007, in the past few seasons, the Italian label has complemented its skirts and bras and dresses with some menswear classics: poplin button ups, polo shirts, board shorts, shell jackets, and sportswear-inspired windbreakers. Each of them taken from the menswear domain, passed through the genius hands of Mrs. Prada, and sent down the runway. But it may just be that in the process of girl-ifying menswear, the pieces have come full-circle and simply re-entered the menswear world as more interesting, more dynamic versions of their former selves.
In the most recent collections, Mrs. Prada has served some morsels to the menswear crowd: a campaign or two, and a handful of looks in each runway show. In the spring 2024 show, there were three classic menswear looks—one of them worn by pop star Troye Sivan; the next season, four. In this collection, that count jumped to seven, including Dafoe’s, out of a total 64. There’s currently no dedicated men’s section on the Miu Miu website, nor on any of the retailers that carry it, but no matter the supply, make no mistake: the demand for Miu Miu for men is higher than it ever has been—and now that demand has a worthy, Oscar-nominated co-sign.
Dafoe, 69, is neither a classic “It” girl nor a front-row frequenter. He did, however, walk in the Prada fall 2012 show alongside fellow prestige actors Adrien Brody and Gary Oldman, and is nonetheless a consistent homing beacon for unspoken cool: he often wears Prada on red carpets, appears in campaigns for Palace and Calvin Klein, and poses for quirky indie-magazine covers. Always leaning in all the way, because, well, he’s Willem Dafoe.
His exclamation point appearance at Miu Miu is somehow the perfect way to ratify the brand as a menswear mecca. Later that night after the show, he attended the brand’s dinner in chunky lace-ups and a navy logo cardigan. Each Miu Miu collection contains precious few mens looks, all ready to be snapped up by the relevant fashionistas (a fair few will, no doubt, be wiggling into the womenswear, too), but that’s not the point, is it? As GQ’s Samuel Hine put it a couple of years ago: cool people like cool clothes, and it shouldn’t—and increasingly doesn’t—matter if they fall within the binary of menswear or womenswear. If Mrs. Prada keeps tuning into the same frequency of youthful cool as she’s been doing for three decades, and keeps producing the goods, there will be plenty to fawn over.
And if Willem Dafoe is here for it, chances are will be, too.
This story originally appeared on British GQ.
