Miu Miu x Church's Spring 2024 Ad Campaign

Review of Miu Miu x Church’s Spring 2024 Ad Campaign by Creative Director Edward Quarmby and Photographer & Director Lengua with Models Matilda Liedholm and Judith Shyambala

Miu Miu and Church’s synthesize an enigmatic atmosphere of polished yet uncanny charm in the new campaign for their latest collaboration. The campaign was shot by photographer Lengua.

The latest offering from the collaborative partnership between the two Prada-owned brands puts a unique spin on the Church’s Shanghai – a shoe style that dates back to 1929 – creating a look that balances newness and nostalgia.

Taking its cue from this spirit, Lengua’s campaign imagery deepens the uncanny space between the banal and the subversive that Miu Miu loves to occupy. Dressed in Miu Miu’s latest collection of disheveled preppy chic, models Matilda Liedholm and Judith Shyambala lounge on lawn chairs among the green grounds of a well-manicured English garden. Though nothing about this scene is exactly out of the ordinary, the slightly off-kilter styling coupled with the way the models enigmatically meet the camera’s gaze creates a subtly strange atmosphere – though we can’t quite put our finger on what’s off about it.

The accompanying short film further leans into this mood of somehow stylish discomfort. A piquantly dissonant avant-jazz soundtrack competes with the trills of birds and bugs as the models relax or readjust.

If there’s one aesthetic category to be applied to the shoe and its campaign, it might be something like “post-twee.” The self-effacing intellectualism of sensitive indie darlings (very British, and thus very Church’s) meets with the can’t-be-bothered cool-girl charm of Miu Miu to become a mysterious and alluring amalgam of fashion moments past and present. We may not exactly be sure about what we’re looking at, but we can’t get enough of it.