If you’re obsessed with Miu Miu — the popular luxury Prada offshoot — you’re not alone. It is everywhere these days.
Sydney Sweeney was praised for enjoying a sustainable style moment when she stepped out dressed head to toe in upcycled Miu Miu denim last year. The “Anyone But You” actor, an ambassador for the label, even wore an upcycled denim bra from the Italian label, which is owned by Prada.
Sweeney isn’t alone in her love of Miu Miu. It is Prada’s top-performing brand right now. Prada Group’s first-quarter results confirm its position as one of luxury’s most resilient players, with retail sales climbing despite broader industry turbulence and an impending acquisition that could reshape its global footprint. The Italian fashion house reported €1.3 billion in unaudited revenue for the first three months of 2025 — about $1.5 billion — marking a 12.5 percent year-over-year increase. Retail net sales rose 13 percent to €1.2 billion, largely propelled by an extraordinary performance at Miu Miu, where revenue soared 60 percent compared to the same period last year, reaching €377 million.
The Prada brand itself saw a marginal dip, with retail sales edging down 0.2 percent to €827 million. The company attributed this to the brand’s “highest quarterly comps of 2024,” indicating an unusually high baseline from which this year’s results are being measured.
Despite that, Prada’s global momentum remains intact. In Asia Pacific — its largest region by sales — the group posted a ten percent gain to €438 million, while European sales rose 14 percent to €334 million, buoyed by both tourist and domestic consumer activity. Sales in the Americas increased ten percent to €201 million, which Prada credited to “an uptick in local demand,” even in the face of what it described as “increased volatility during the period.” Elsewhere, Japan saw an 18 percent lift to €172 million, and the Middle East posted the group’s highest regional growth at 26.5 percent, totaling €70 million.
While the company’s press release offered few details on its recent plans to acquire Versace for $1.4 billion from Capri Holdings — a deal expected to close in the second half of the year pending regulatory approval — it signaled continued confidence in the company’s forward momentum.
Prada Group Chairman and Executive Director Patrizio Bertelli emphasized the brand’s enduring focus on resilience, saying, “it is essential to continue to invest with a long-term mindset.” He added that the company was pleased with its quarterly results given the macroeconomic backdrop, noting “an increasingly turbulent and uncertain landscape,” and stressing that such conditions demand “agility and flexibility.”
CEO Andrea Guerra echoed that forward-looking strategy. “Looking ahead, our strategy remains centred on our brands, their relevance, creativity and marked sensibility in reading the spirit of the time,” he said. “Sharp execution will be key in this environment.”
Celebrity endorsements are also playing a key role in its success. Remember actor and model Emma Corrin’s viral underwear as outerwear moment? Yep, that was Miu Miu. Kendall Jenner also modeled for the brand, and its Spring 2024 October show was a star-studded event, with Sweeney, Alix Earle, Adriana Lima, and Emma Chamberlain all in attendance. MEOVV’s Ella was named a new brand ambassador for Miu Miu last month.
So Miu Miu is the luxury fashion brand of the moment, that much seems clear. And it is committed, at least in part, to sustainable upcycled fashion. But alongside its parent company, Prada, it has also been plagued by a lack of transparency around the nitty-gritty details of its supply chain — details that are incredibly important when it comes to determining just how ethical and eco-friendly a brand really is.
Starting with the positives: Sweeney’s headline-grabbing outfit was from the brand’s fourth upcycled collection. According to the brand, the collections were “born from its passion for conscious fashion and circular design practice.” Using old materials for new garments is an inherently sustainable practice — it reduces demand for new denim, which comes from an industry that is notorious for major environmental issues like chemical pollution and high water usage. Miu Miu doesn’t only upcycle denim; you can also find collections of its reworked vintage dresses in its boutiques around the world.
Miu Miu’s latest Upcycled capsule, created with Oscar-winning costume designer Catherine Martin, revives the glamour of 1920s Riviera through circular design. Inspired by the era’s bohemian expats, the collection transforms vintage jersey, reclaimed denim, antique lace, and silk bedsheets into slip dresses, sailor-collar jackets, and bold knits. “It was this idea of the world between the wars,” Martin told Vogue. “You have a lot of expatriate artists like the Fitzgeralds going to live on the Riviera… where lots of things were possible.”
Accustomed to film sets with unlimited resources, Martin embraced the creative limitations of working with only existing materials. “They can either break down existing yarn and respin it, or just use bits of fluff…. They can take those scraps and remake them into garments,” she said. Launched alongside Martin’s short film starring Daisy Ridley and Willem Dafoe, the collection reflects a rare blend of theatricality and sustainability.
But outside of these special upcycled collections, many of Miu Miu’s go-to materials raise a few eyebrows when it comes to sustainability. It uses many animal-derived materials — it has an entire collection made out of leather, featuring mini skirts, embellished jackets, coats, and more. However, research suggests that leather is one of the worst materials that brands can use for the environment. It is a co-product (not a by-product, as many assume) of the beef industry, which is the world’s leading driver of deforestation and methane emissions. Every year, just one cow belches out around 220 pounds of methane.
While leather has long been seen as a staple material in luxury fashion, based on its monumental environmental impact, some brands are starting to reject it. In fact, in 2021, Nicolaj Reffstrup, the founder of the Danish luxury brand Ganni, said “selling leather products, although highly profitable, will soon be as outdated as smoking on TV.”
Prada Group as a whole is taking steps toward progress in terms of sustainability. It recently joined King Charles III’s Sustainable Markets Initiative’s Fashion Task Force, alongside brands like Burberry, Stella McCartney, and Gabriela Hearst. The Task Force aims to cultivate solutions to some of fashion’s biggest environmental problems. Right now, it is exploring “how regenerative farming practices, across raw materials, can reverse the damage being done to the planet,” for example.
Miu Miu’s parent company has been called out multiple times for a lack of transparency in its supply chain. Last year, it was named alongside several other brands in a report from KnowTheChain and The Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, which focused on a lack of action on modern slavery in the luxury fashion space.
The center looked at 65 companies across the fashion industry and scored their efforts in 12 different categories out of 100. These categories included supply chain transparency, responsible recruitment, and management and accountability. While it improved on the previous year’s score, Prada scored just nine out of 100.
“The fashion industry has long since been in the media spotlight for its endemic human rights risks and labor abuse scandals,” Aine Clarke, head of KnowTheChain and investor strategy at BHRRC, said in a recent interview. “Despite this, most companies are not adapting to the scale and scope of these issues across global supply chains.”
There’s no question that Miu Miu will keep growing in popularity, the only question is, will its sustainability commitments and ethical labor practices grow too?
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