Miuccia Prada has “too many things to do” than idle on TikTok, but she is aware of the countless number of teens that took to the FYP to showcase their own DIY versions of her SS22 skirt sets. The designer pursued that silhouette for the next two seasons while watching the look get reproduced by PLT and most other designers on the fashion week circuit. By the time she had started on her AW23 collection, which debuted this afternoon, she had presumably seen enough. Out with the risqué It-girl and all her wanton micro-minis, in with the persnickety librarian and all her knee-length skirts. 

Rendered in thick herringbone wool and sensible cord textures, the presiding look this season is bookish: oval spectacles, sheer tights in sickly-sweet combinations of burnt ochre and plum, cardigans festooned in floral motifs. Perhaps Miuccia also heard speak of the English Frazzled Woman – which had its 15-minutes of TikTok fame earlier this year – and decided to backcomb her models’ hair into post-coital flyaways. It made Mia Goth, Ethel Cain, Zaya Wade, Amelia Gray, and Emma Corrin look as though they had just been caught snogging in the corner of a public library or some drab office cubicle. 

It wasn’t all frump and lump, though. After all, it was Miuccia Prada that said “ugly is attractive, ugly is exciting” and there’s always a jolt of eroticism that occurs when those two things overlap. It means plenty of looks huffed with desire, despite their goofball appearance. Branded knickers poked out from beneath thick-set waistbands and come-hither slips, while cardigans were visibly stuffed into transparent hosiery. Perhaps all those people who are currently arguing about whether it’s possible to be both hot and academic on Twitter should look to Miu Miu’s AW23 collection for an answer. 

Click through the gallery above to see the rest of Mrs Prada’s latest offering at Paris Fashion Week.