A DAY OFF-GROUNDS: ANGELA HILL

THE PHOTOGRAPHER AND IDEA FOUNDER DETAILS THE FILMIC INSPIRATION BEHIND MIU MIU’S 2025 HOLIDAY CAMPAIGN

By Morgan Becker

When Angela Hill thinks of Miu Miu, she thinks of Picnic at Hanging Rock—Peter Weir’s 1975 thriller based on Joan Lindsay’s novel of the same name. The film is set in the early 20th century, centering a group of students enrolled at an all-girls boarding school; on Valentine’s Day, their headmistress takes them on a trip off-grounds. Soon enough, a teacher and a few of the girls go missing. The narrative unfurls into classic mystery. It’s not really the mystery that Angela loves about Peter’s film, though. She’s drawn to its vibrant encapsulation of adolescent romance, or adolescent tension, that filters throughout.

So when the photographer was asked to photograph Miu Miu’s Holiday campaign—in collaboration with her friend, stylist Lotta Volkova—she wanted to contrast the Miu Miu schoolgirl archetype with a grand, forgone set. The pair landed on an Elizabethan manor house in the British countryside. “It’s everything I did as a child,” says Angela. “My parents used to take me to a lot of historical sites—ruined castles, churches, Hampton Court Palace, Windsor, Eton.” She herself went to an all-girls school, and so the direction felt natural: “You walk around, arm in arm, and you’re giggling and doing silly things. It was like a day out from school.”

Angela’s career was set in motion by Pamela Hanson, the world-renowned fashion photographer; the latter has covered every major magazine and published a handful of art books, notably Girls (2000) and Boys (2006). “I just couldn’t stop looking at Hanson and thinking, That’s what I want to do,” she recalled in an earlier interview.

The photographer moved on from assisting and took up shooting for Dazed and Purple, putting her own spin on portraits of girls as they approached womanhood. For whatever reason, from Sophia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides to Justine Kurland’s Girl Pictures to Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation, that genre of stylized, languid female coming-of-age has captured the public imagination. Angela—who’s now published monographs Sylvia and X-Girl Show—joined a class of great artists, interested in immortalizing the fleeting spirit of girlhood.

What makes the campaign special is its continuity with the rest of Angela’s work. One one hand, she says, “I do genuinely wear Miu Miu every day. So for me, [it was already] kind of ‘in my world.’” On the other, it was a chance to photograph within the themes that already occupy her headspace: “[The shoot] reminded me of exploration, which is adolescence itself. You don’t know what’s going on. You’ve got all these emotions, everything churning up inside. And you think you know a lot, but you don’t know anything.”

And then, of course, the clothes. “I always like things that look like a uniform,” says Angela. “There were some great white trousers, a white cotton skirt, little knits. And zip-up track-y tops, I love. Warmer skirts and loafers—there were loads of loafers.” Miu Miu’s 2025 Holiday offerings are crumpled, patchworked, and shimmery Ultra-feminine, in any case. Beyond the loafers and the skirts, moccasins, knee-highs, ballerina flats, and backpacks complete the Book Club effect, modeled by Gigi Hadid, Ju Xiaowen, Dede Mansro, and Viola Sharp on Super 8. They form a cast of characters, enacting the raw feeling of encountering something old, but new in your eyes.

Beyond photography, Angela also runs IDEA with her husband—a bookshop and publishing house in London’s Soho. She’s a collector of vintage interior guides, rare photo books, albums, records; building her own curated worlds through images, and sharing images with others. It’s a testament to the Miu Miu moment that the label ranks among Angela’s favorites, considering how deeply industry types trust her tastemaking. “It’s always about youth to me,” says the photographer. “I think Miu Miu manages to make things look cool, for want of a better word. It’s so easy to wear. It’s fun to try on. And in a way, you’re wearing something special, but you’re not wearing something special. It becomes your everyday—just fling it on and do it up.”