Miu Miu’s 2025 ‘Upcycled’ campaign, directed by Catherine Martin, blends fashion and film in a cinematic celebration of sustainability and reinvention, showcasing vintage-inspired upcycled garments in a haunting French chateau setting.
What this is:
Miu Miu’s ‘Upcycled’ 2025 Ad Campaign is a cinematic celebration of fashion’s power to reinterpret the past through a modern lens. This campaign, brought to life by creative director Catherine Martin (yes, the Oscar-winning production designer famed for her lush visual storytelling), art director Edward Quarmby, and photographer Michella Bredahl, introduces a collection of garments that have been reclaimed, reimagined, and revived. At the heart of this campaign is Martin’s directorial debut short film, Grande Envie, set in the sun-drenched, gently decaying grandeur of a French chateau. The cast—an evocative mix of actors and models including Callina Liang, Daisy Ridley, Diana Silvers, Jasmin Savoy Brown, and the enigmatic Willem Dafoe—glide through bedrooms and lawns like beautifully dressed apparitions, each wearing upcycled pieces that elegantly blur the boundaries between eras.
Our take:
Let’s be clear: this isn’t just a visual feast, it’s a daring manifesto. Miu Miu’s campaign, with styling by the ever-provocative Lotta Volkova, orchestrates a sartorial dialogue between nostalgia and rebellion. Imagine vintage slips under collegiate blazers, sailor jackets paired with delicate lingerie, and prim t-shirts peeking out from beneath intricate lace. There’s a delicious tension—echoes of the 1920s and ’30s decadence clashing (gently) with the unruly energy of now. These are clothes with stories, lovingly salvaged and transformed, inviting us to treasure the past while rewriting its narrative for a sustainable future.
What truly elevates the campaign is its emotional intelligence. Through Bredahl’s voyeuristic lens, each scene becomes a meditation on longing, memory, and the romance of second chances—for both garments and the souls who wear them. Grande Envie and the campaign as a whole pose a radical proposition for the luxury world: True desire is not about the shock of the new, but about the beauty found in what has endured and been transformed. Miu Miu dares us to look deeper, to value history and vision over novelty. In the age of fast everything, this is fashion’s most generous—and haunting—gift.
Images courtesy of the brand
