Miu Miu Falling Apart: How to Handle a Quality Issue

Marina 2Jour
5 days ago
2 min read

Miu Miu got into PR trouble.

Context: Wisdom Kaye, who has nearly 14 million followers on TikTok, posted a video sharing his shopping experience at Miu Miu. He spent around $18,000 in the boutique. Two items — specifically a cardigan and a denim jacket — had their hardware falling apart the moment he took them out of the shopping bag. The video got 3.5 million views on TikTok.

The brand tried to fix the situation and sent replacements. While the zipper on the cardigan was fine, the buttons fell off the vest when he checked it. That video has already gathered more than 5 million views.

Now, the brand’s social media profiles are flooded with mockery and comparisons to mass-market brands known for low quality (but also much lower prices).

In addition to the obvious — and unfortunately missed — step of checking the items before sending them out, here’s what needs to be done now:

Short term:

make no public comments;
if possible, review the publishing calendar and pause content for a while, except for posts without comment option such as Stories;
do not delete or disable comments. In the era of total transparency, it still amazes me how many brands do this and only draw even more attention;
make sure that the same issue does not exist with other samples of these two specific items. This can be done in two ways:

1) either remove both items from sale until they are fully checked, or —

2) if possible within the internal system — add a warning to double-check them before sale in boutiques or before shipping to online clients.

I still see both items listed online in the brand’s store.

• check other items that use the same hardware. This could be a supplier defect or a manufacturing defect. It’s a lot of work, but one or more repeat cases would seriously worsen the brand’s perception.

Long-term:

review quality control standards;
add to the instructions an additional detailed inspection stage right before the item ends up in the client’s hands.

This situation is not only about Miu Miu, but also about the perception of luxury as a whole. I will keep repeating: every time this happens, it damages not only the reputation of the brand, but the entire luxury sector. Luxury is falling apart, literally.