Miu Miu Resort 2012

In keeping with Miu Miu's congenital oddity, the 21 looks of the label's Resort collection revisit the dressed-up excesses of the late 1980's with an overdose of tongue-in-cheek irony. 

You can only wonder what It Girls of the Here and Now will make of Memphis-printed puffball skirts, a peplumed coat-dress in red duchesse satin for day, and extravagant overloads of pearl necklaces, rhinestone-studded headbands, and powder blue lace gloves. 

Maybe they'll get the joke. That would certainly be the Prada way.

The style of the Lacroix lady was subverted here with a girly rock 'n' roll irreverence. Sure, a cropped jacket was lavished with pearls and beading and more pearls trimmed the Peter Pan collar of its accompanying blouse, but the outfit was completed with an athletic barely-there onesie.

 The stark contrast made it seem as though a look that started out with a hint of the extreme had been pushed even further. That felt like the key to the collection. Hence, a fuchsia-checked dress with pouf sleeves and an even pouf-ier short skirt. 

Or the bowed and ruffled sundress, also super-short, with a flower-embroidered, cabled cardigan buttoned at the throat—a haute bourgeois finishing touch that was something Miu Miu's Resort collection shared with its big sister Prada. 

Also crossing over was the sheer black lace, worn with nude underwear. But where it looked seriously adult at Prada, it stayed resolutely playful at Miu Miu, thanks to the overload of sparkly accessories. The optimism of youth, the decadence of excess—unlikely reconciliations are also the Miuccia way.