The woman behind the brand
At the age of 28, Miuccia took over her grandfather’s family business.
grandfather’s business, which he had started in 1913 with a leather goods store in the Galleria
Vittorio Emanuelle II had founded in Milan. Until today it is, together with Raf Simons as co-creative director, the driving creative force behind the Prada and Miu Miu fashion brands – smart fashion for women who want more.
For almost 50 years, Miuccia Prada, together with her husband Patrizio Bertelli, has been the main owner of the Prada Group. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, she expresses the belief that her driving force behind the employees is important for the brand to retain its core and character. Otherwise, the risk of the brand becoming diluted and interchangeable over time is too great.
No easy task, which she now shares with co-director Raf Simons, as assembling the right teams and keeping the brand alive and authentic with more than 600 company-owned stores in 70 countries and sales of 3.23 billion euros in fiscal 2019 is a tall order. 85 percent of sales are generated in the company’s own stores, while 15 percent come from shop-in-shop concepts in department stores or other multi-brand stores.
In addition to the main Prada brand, Miucca Prada is also responsible for the younger Miu Miu brand, which bears Micucci’s Prada nickname. Both have a distinctive style that, in its mix of classic elements and unusual elements such as prints, materials and intricate details, appeals to intelligent women who see clothing as an investment and a statement of their own personality.
Women who go their own way and appreciate the casual elegance of Prada and Miu Miu fashion, which is never too flashy, never overly feminine and never wearable only for one season, but always elegant, on the pulse of time and wearable everywhere.
Fondazione Prada
Prada’s commitment to art and culture is also intelligent. In May 2015, the Fondazione Prada was opened, in a former distillery opposite a Prada office building in Milan. The architectural design here is also by Rem Kohlhaas. The building houses exhibition spaces for the works of art from the collection of the couple Prada and Patrizio Bertelli, which includes over 900 works, offers spaces for installations and dance performances, a cinema hall and the Bar Luce, designed by Wes Anderson.
While other fashion brands such as Louis Vuitton, for example, cooperate with artists who design artist’s editions for accessories, Miuccia believes in her own creativity and line her fashion brands and would like to see her art involvement separate from the fashion business. Without a doubt, however, the Fondazione Prada is an important element in communicating the DNA of the Prada brand.
Here, too, it is the mixture of established art and the joy of experimentation that distinguishes the exhibits and installations. In its inaugural year, Fondazione Prada succeeded in generating 3000 editorial contributions worldwide. Barrack Obama’s daughters have been there, and along with an offshoot in Venice, it has become an important entry in the itineraries of culture- and fashion-minded travelers.
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