Miu Miu 'Upcycled' Spring 2024 Ad Campaign

Review of Miu Miu ‘Upcycled’ Lunar New Year 2024 Ad Campaign by Creative Director Edward Quarmby and Photographer Jet Swan with models Ever Anderson and Huijia Chen

Miu Miu extends its Upcycled project and celebrates Lunar New Year with a striking campaign that quietly investigates the beauty of new beginnings. The campaign features creative direction from Edward Quarmby and photography by Jet Swan.

Miu Miu’s Upcycled project began in 2020, and has previously repurposed vintage dresses and leather jackets to create bespoke new pieces that pay homage to sartorial history while revitalizing it for a unique fashion future. The latest capsule sees the house turn its attention to upcycled jeans – dated pre-2000 and thoughtfully sourced from denim specialists all over the world – which have been repurposed by hand with outer seams preserved in order to maintain the memory of the original piece and reuse as much fabric as possible. For the first time, the Upcycled project also includes bags, introducing a patchwork bag crafted from leather remnants of previous Miu Miu designs.

This latest Upcycled capsule is celebrated in a campaign that also highlights Miu Miu’s capsule for Lunar New Year, which reimagines its signature polo, cardigan, and Wander and Arcadie bags. While it may seem that the house is simply saving resources and killing two birds with one stone by putting these distinct capsules together in one campaign, they do actually play off each other in an intriguing way, both visually and conceptually. The celebratory scarlet forms a bold pop of contrast against the rich patina and soulful, history-evoking fades of the denim pieces. Both the advent of the new year and the act of upcycling invite reflections on the past while inspiring motion forward into an exciting future.

The accompanying short films make excellent use of editing and sound cues to breathe in the rich details of these uniquely cohabitant design capsules. Lending further depth to the inscrutable attitudes of models Huijia Chen and Ever Anderson, the atmospheric harp soundtrack is reborn and refracted with each camera cut to create a synesthetic intersection of color, craft, and sound.

Communicating a quietly intellectual take on transformation and rediscovery through striking visuals, Miu Miu welcomes the new year with style.