At Milan Design Week, you can count on certain experiences: admiring luxurious sofas, sneaking a peek inside normally private apartments, and drinking far too many negronis. But something more unexpected? Watching locals of all ages settle onto benches in a beautifully atmospheric (and charmingly dusty) historic library. Then listening as model Cindy Bruna read from a lesser-known 1957 Japanese novel—about a wife sent to find a concubine for her husband. When Bruna closed the book and turned to the writers beside her, signaling the start of their discussion, the room fell completely silent.

This was where I found myself on Thursday afternoon at the second edition of the Miu Miu Literary Club. Held over two days at the Circolo Filologico Milanese, a cultural hub for foreign languages, the event began with panel talks in the library before spilling into the building’s wrought-iron staircases and wood-paneled halls. Eventually, the stylish crowd (plenty of Miu Miu logos in sight) gathered in the grand atrium, sipping spritzes beneath an LED display flashing the names of the day’s speakers. The performances that followed—music from Joy Crookes and Pip Millett, spoken word from Jess Cole and Kai-Isiah Jamal—all shared a focus on exploring womanhood through words. (Honestly, the midweek timing was a relief—after days of racing between showrooms, it was a joy to sit and absorb something truly thought-provoking.)

Speaking with Olga Campofreda, the Italian-born writer who curated the event, it was clear this was a close collaboration with Miuccia Prada herself. A few years ago, Prada reached out after reading Campofreda’s article about growing up in early 2000s Italy and her frustration with the male-dominated literary canon taught in schools. “When Mrs. Prada asks you to do something, you don’t say no,” Campofreda said with a smile. “It’s been a dream.”

A dream, yes—but one made real through hard work. After last year’s event, Campofreda spent the summer digging into overlooked classics by women to inspire this year’s discussions. She drafted a longlist, then met with Prada to refine the selections. “Mrs. Prada kept emphasizing education, studying, and critical thinking,” Campofreda explained. “That’s how the theme of women’s education emerged.”

Once the theme was set, the books were chosen—with Prada’s strong input. “Simone de Beauvoir was an early pick, pushed by Mrs. Prada,” Campofreda noted, highlighting The Inseparables—written in 1954 but only published in 2020—for its raw honesty about female friendship. The second book, Fumiko Enchi’s The Waiting Years, was equally bold in its exploration of women’s lives.The text stood out for its brutally honest exploration of female sexuality. “Fumiko felt very significant because she discusses a unique form of women’s education—sexual education,” Campofreda explained. “She was a trailblazer for writers addressing female desire and among the first to tackle the concept of the male gaze, which wasn’t formally articulated in academia until the 1970s. She was truly ahead of her time.”

Mrs. Prada herself echoed this sentiment. “Through their novels, Simone de Beauvoir and Fumiko Enchi challenged stereotypes that still persist in our culture today,” she told Vogue before the event. “By centering these themes in conversation, we aim to raise awareness about women’s education. How do we teach young girls self-determination? How do we prepare them to become the independent women of the future?”

For the discussion of de Beauvoir’s novel, moderated by writer and curator Lou Stoppard, Campofreda and Prada invited three authors whose works similarly subvert traditional notions of femininity: Italian novelist Veronica Raimo, Indian-born writer Geetanjali Shree, and American author Lauren Elkin, who now lives in Paris and previously translated The Inseparables into English.

All three noted how relevant the book felt today, but Elkin was particularly struck. “I reread it yesterday on the plane, and it hit differently this time,” she said. “Coming from an American perspective, I worry for my three nieces growing up in a country where women’s rights are increasingly under threat. There’s a resurgence of rigid, traditional views on womanhood—it’s insidious. Seeing the same kind of religious and social oppression that harms Zaza [the protagonist’s best friend] in the novel playing out in my own country is deeply unsettling.”

Even with fashion brand backing, Elkin sees initiatives like the Miu Miu Literary Club as a positive force. Four years after translating a book that remained obscure for decades, she’s thrilled to see it gaining fresh attention. “It’s wonderful to see a whole new audience, in a different setting and country, engaging passionately with this work,” she said. (As Campofreda noted, last year’s club even revived one selected book’s popularity—no doubt helped by its visibility on the arms of Milan’s stylish crowd all week.)

Meanwhile, the discussion around Enchi’s novel—featuring Nicola Dinan (London), Sarah Manguso (Los Angeles), and Naoise Dolan (Berlin, via Dublin)—revealed how each writer saw their own experiences mirrored in the protagonist’s story. This was surprising, given that the character is a 19th-century Japanese official’s wife who initially visits geisha houses to find a lover for her husband, then spends decades masking loneliness and rage with dutiful loyalty. (Manguso joked, “Personally, I love rage—I seem to have an endless supply of it.”)At Campofreda, the discussions felt particularly relevant given Italy’s backward debates on sex education. While she didn’t name anyone directly, the influence of Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party loomed large—a group that has pushed to erase LGBTQ+ topics from schools and even protested Netflix for displaying posters of their show Sex Education in Italian streets.

“This topic remains highly contested in public and political discourse,” Campofreda noted. “We know many boys first learn about sex through pornography, for example. Schools aren’t doing enough to counter that or teach anyone—boys, men, everyone—what sex truly means. How do girls and women understand sex? Their own bodies? Pleasure and desire? Literature by women, for women, helps answer these questions.”

Panel host Kai-Isaiah Jamal.
Photo: T Space

Nicola Dinan, Naoise Dolan, and Sarah Manguso.
Photo: T Space

What made the Miu Miu Literary Club so engaging was that its intellectual depth didn’t sacrifice fun. The conversations often turned humorous when tackling the absurd challenges women face—both in fiction and reality.

When asked about parallels between her novel Lost on Me and Simone de Beauvoir’s writing on the female body, Raimo acknowledged the question’s relevance but pointed out how often women field such inquiries. “With men, it’s just about the soul, the intellect…” She paused, then joked, “Maybe men don’t have bodies. Who knows?”

Elsewhere, Dolan, discussing Fumiko Enchi’s work, connected with the protagonist’s upbringing, quipping, “My sex education boiled down to: Don’t.”

Thought-provoking, smart, but never too serious? It was pure Miu Miu.