Miu Miu Literary Club Heads to Shanghai—and Offers a Deeper Take on Fashion’s Book Obsession

Photo: Courtesy of Miu Miu

The growth of Miu Miu Literary Club feels fortuitously timed: There’s been a rising fashion-world fixation on literature over the past few seasons, with models launching their own book clubs, designers printing extracts of books across clothes, and brands selling statement tote bags decorated with the covers of classic novels. As always, however, where others zig, Mrs. Prada zags. In a similar vein to the other major pillar of Miu Miu’s cultural programming, the long-running Women’s Tales initiative, which commissions women filmmakers to create original short films, the Literary Club takes its mission seriously. There are conversations between women writers that anyone can attend—and, through its Summer Reads program, Miu Miu has distributed thousands of copies of each book spotlighted through the Literary Club to readers for free, via pop-ups around the globe. (So too does it slyly flesh out themes explored in the label’s collections: It was hard not to identify a throughline between the sartorial signifiers of domestic life embedded in Miu Miu’s spring 2026 collection—aprons, pinafores, housecoats—and the inner lives of the maids and concubines surveyed in Enchi’s novel, in particular.)

So, then, to the talks, which took place within an airy, light-filled hall decorated in the style of a mid-century Milanese library, a jewel-toned yellow sofa surrounded by Marcel Breuer chairs and set against a rippling crimson velvet curtain. First up was a discussion of The Inseparables, de Beauvoir’s heart-wrenching semi-autobiographical novel about a passionate friendship between teenage girls that was only published in 2020. “The scaffolds they want to break free from can still be felt now, and the plights they wanted to escape still exist,” observed panelist Yuan Xiaoyi, a scholar of French literature. “Even when she’s writing fiction, de Beauvoir is still a realist writer.” (The assembled group, which included the book’s Chinese translator, Cao Dongxue, also made special mention of de Beauvoir’s 1955 trip to the country with Jean-Paul Sartre, making them some of the first academics to visit after the People’s Republic of China was established. “So she is an old friend of ours,” said Xiaoyi, to a swell of laughter from the crowd.)

Actor Li Gengxi reads from Fumiko Enchi’s The Waiting Years.

Photo: Courtesy of Miu Miu

Musician Chen Sijiang performs.

Photo: Courtesy of Miu Miu

Next, it was time for an appropriately East-meets-West lunch—miniature Wagyu beef sandwiches and zucchini ciabatta, washed down with iced teas or negronis, depending on your constitution—and a stirring performance from Chen Sijiang, frontwoman of the Chengdu-based indie band Hiperson, before an afternoon session on Chang’s novel. It was this talk—which coincided with the 30th anniversary of Chang’s death, and began with a reading from the novel by actor Zhao Jinmai, the Miu Miu ambassador who stars in Bi Gan’s Resurrection, a notable hit from this year’s Cannes Film Festival—that served as the day’s thematic lynchpin. The Malaysian Chinese author Li Zishu, who led the discussion, was unafraid to offer her critiques of the book—in particular, her dissatisfaction with Chang’s portrayal of the central character’s mother—while novelist Di An pointed out the parallels she discovered between the protagonist’s journey and her own liberation as a woman, speaking frankly about her (amicable) divorce and how she left her stable career as a journalist to pursue her dreams of becoming a writer. “It’s not selfish to pursue our own dreams,” she said. “I want to help minimize that guilt.”