short read 7 4 6 3 8 6. Miu Miu girls unite at this year’s Venice Film Festival: (from left) Elle Fanning, Kirsten Dunst, Kate Mara, Felicity Jones 2 and Lena Dunham MIU MIU 7. Looks from Miu Miu Bag, $1,600 fall 2015 8. Blue is the Warmest Color stars and Miu Miu models Adèle Exarchopoulos (left) and Léa Seydoux 1 beginning, it was in very, very few stores. Instead, they hired a then, that Prada’s irreverent little sister—the label Miuccia feet of motor vans that drove around and invited people in for founded as a side project to let her design instincts run wild a personal discovery.” Perhaps this is why Miu Miu’s rollout is between collections—has waited so long to release its frst spritz. exclusive to Holt Renfrew for six months before it hits the masses But the timing, it turns out, may be perfect. Increasingly, fashion in 2016. “Because, above all,” Edwards continues, “what you’re is turning away from the mass toward the cult: such mainstream engineering is word of mouth.” The new EDP will undoubtedly have people chattering. Under the direction of Miuccia Prada, perfumer Daniela Andrier “Some will sell 5 achieved what she calls a “revolution” by basing the eau on lily 1. A behind-the-scenes shot their best chain bag for it. from the perfume’s campaign of the valley, a foral that rarely anchors contemporary scents starring Stacy Martin because it’s extremely challenging to isolate. “I thought lily of Others may loathe it” 2. Designer Miuccia Prada. 3. Martin at the Paris the valley would be the perfect ft because it’s full of elegance and fragrance launch 4. A look joy, but the fower doesn’t give its smell away through distilla- stars as Kim Kardashian and Karlie Kloss are covering indie mag- from Miu Miu’s resort 2016 tion,” she says at the media preview in Manhattan. Decoded, that azines like Paper and Cherry Bombe (respectively), while vaunted MIU MIU collection 5. Mia Goth in the Eau de Parfum, label’s controversial spring means the typical extraction process destroys the delicate fow- brands are choosing their reps less for their facial symmetry and $135, Holt Renfrew ready-to-wear campaign er’s fragrance. Andrier scrupulously experimented with 1,200 more for their cool factor—see Joni Mitchell for Saint Laurent or different iterations to simulate its essence, the ultimate formula all of Cara Delevingne’s campaigns. And, on the runway, trends being a precise blend of rose absolute, jasmine absolute and syn- have given way to anything-goes individuality. thetic green notes. Ms. Prada is a long-time master of this idiosyncrasy-over-con- The result is sparklingly foral and fresh, yet somehow soft ventionality ethos, plucking fercely independent beauties for and nostalgic. For a nanosecond, you could mistake it as girly her campaigns: Drew Barrymore when she had barely rehabbed or naïve, like the high-necked ruffes and big-buttoned peacoats her coke-kid image; Kirsten Dunst after she killed her good-girl Scent of a Cool Girl in the fall collection. But then something dark itches your brain, rep with The Virgin Suicides; and, more recently, Léa Seydoux Miu Miu’s first-ever fragrance is every bit as pretty, playful and polarizing as something aggressively spicy yet soap-clean (the acid orange and Adèle Exarchopoulos, stars of the sexually explicit lesbian the label’s designs. RACHEL HEINRICHS discovers the next cult perfume miniskirt to clash with those pretty ruffes). This is a one-of-a- romance Blue Is the Warmest Color. The latest addition to the kind fantasy note created by treating Akigalawood, an extract of club, and the face of the eau de parfum, is 23-year-old French- patchouli, with an enzyme that transforms the hippy-dippy herb English actress Stacy Martin. She has six indie movies out this WALK INTO THE NEW YORK CITY Miu Miu fagship on 57th’s one reason such art-house ingenues as Felicity Jones and Elle into a conundrum. Is that patchouli? Not quite. Wood? Earth? year but is best known for Lars von Trier’s controversial full-fron- luxury strip, and you may be confronted by exquisitely ugly Fanning clamour to wear it. It’s also a key to the label’s debut Pepper? Mayyybee. It’s impossible to place—and bound to raise tal fick Nymphomaniac, in which she plays the titular sex addict. jewel-encrusted running shoes made of satin and rubber, and scent, Miu Miu Eau de Parfum, which hits Holt Renfrew stores questions from anyone close enough to sniff. Like Angel, some (Her on-flm sexcapades with Shia LaBeouf were so real, many Day-Glo yellow plastic dresses embossed with obscenely large in September. Two years in the making, the new juice has been will sell their best chain bag for it, while others may loathe it. But viewers were shocked to learn they were wearing prosthetic pri- crocodile scales. The mood is playful yet unsettling. It could painstakingly crafted to become the next cult perfume—the this is exactly the kind of canny risk that makes a cult darling. vate parts.) be the walls, which appear to be draped in gold damask cur- olfactory equivalent of an it-bag. The pretty ’60s-blue bottle, topped with a heavy red stopper In the campaign, Martin plays the opposite of her unabash- FOR WHERE SEE STYLESOURCE. BUY, TO tains—until you lean on one and realize the fabric is rigid—or These days, the word “cult” is applied to everything from that doubles as an old-fashioned wrist dabber, is destined to be edly sexy character, posing in the sweetest of sweet tableaux, the foor-to-ceiling mirrors that suddenly swing open as store indie movies to mascaras, but in the fragrance lexicon, it means a vanity icon. “It’s so Miu Miu!” beauty editors cooed during the complete with an adorable black kitten batting the bottle top. clerks in mini-dresses sashay forth from hidden rooms. Look, something very specifc. “A true cult fragrance,” says Michael reveal, because its texture mimics the matelassé technique used “The Miu Miu world is a very daring, fun and curious one that too, at the spring campaign that was recently banned in the Edwards, author of New Fragrances of the World, now in its 31st on the brand’s signature handbags. That contrast of throwback encourages and nurtures artists to develop who they are and U.K. because its otherworldly star, little-known actress Mia edition, “seems to create a mystique. The juice needs to have blue and modern fre-burst red also shows up on boxy shoulder what they do,” says Martin by email, offering a pithy summary Goth, is draped on an unmade bed and viewed through a crack an edge that makes people say, ‘Wow, that smells special.’ And, bags in the prefall collection. If you don’t have $1,500-plus to of Miu Miu’s POV. Ms. Prada’s world, flled with rebellious and in the door by Steven Meisel’s voyeuristic lens, making her look logically, it must not be too available.” He uses Angel, Thierry drop on the bag, the bottle is the next best accessory at only $135. girlish clothes, young women who are as intellectual as they are like an erotically charged teen rather than an of-age 22-year- Mugler’s 1992 cocoa-tinged scent as a textbook case: “It was Prada Group, Miu Miu’s parent company, has been in the innocent and as aggressive as they are playful and soft, now has old. Nothing in the Miu Miu universe is quite as it seems. This the frst gourmand [a fragrance based on edible-smelling notes], fragrance biz for decades with more than 43 scents, including a scent to capture its many polarities. It’s not for everyone, but mischievousness is the secret to the brand’s quirk-prestige, and so nobody had smelled anything like it,” he says, “and in the PHOTOGRAPHY:IVAN ENGLER (EAU DE PARFUM). GETTY IMAGES (PRADA, VENICE SEYDOUXFILM FESTIVAL, AND EXARCHOPOULOS). ANTHEA SIMMS HIGGINS. (RUNWAY, EXCEPT CARLENE EDITOR: RESORT 2016). (FLOWERS). ISTOCK mass-market hits like the ultra-feminine Candy. It’s surprising, that’s precisely the point. SEPTEMBER!2015 BEAUTY 96 FLARE.COM FLARE.COM 97 BEAUTY SEPTEMBER!2015.