Building Prada
Everyone has heard about Prada. If you discovered the brand through the film ‘Devil wears Prada’, some rap song that mentions them or through their shows in Milan fashion week is irrelevant, the important thing is that you got to know one of the most important luxury houses there is. Of course, the prestige and renown the brand has had in the last 30 years is not the product of luck and faith but rather thanks to the vision and stylistic philosophy of its co-creative director and co-CEO, Miuccia Prada.
When the company was founded, in 1913, it did not resemble at all the company we all know today. Founded in the famous Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele in Milan, Prada started as a leather goods shop, focusing on travel trunks and leather accessories. Thanks to their sophisticated techniques and use of fine materials, in 1919 Prada became the official supplier of the Italian royal family, gaining popularity in the Italian and European aristocracy. Miuccia’s mother, Luisa, was the heiress to the company and took charge in 1958, but surely the company took a turning point when in 1978 Miuccia took control.
Initially, an aspiring politician, Maria Bianchi (Miuccia’s real name) earned a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Milan, where her ideologies drifted increasingly toward feminism and left-wing politics. She started working for the company as a store manager for one of the two stores they had, and as an accessories designer. In 1978 she succeeded her mother as head of the company — which had by then shrunk to only a single store — and hired as her primary supplier the Italian businessman, and a few years later his husband, Patrizio Bertelli, a leather-goods manufacturer whom she had met the previous year at a trade fair where he was selling Fratelli Prada knockoffs. One of the first moves they decided together was to introduce the use of Nylon as a new material to make handbags, with low success.
In 1984 they started broadening the brand while introducing shoes to their production and finally in 1989 Prada presented their first women’s ready-to-wear collection. “Miuccia’s answer to high fashion in the ’90s, when she introduced Prada’s notion of ugly chic, wasn’t just personal; it was a rebuttal to Milan’s system of presenting a consistent style and silhouette each season. She really challenged that notion by changing Prada’s direction every season, often dramatically. The consequences of that move have been profound. Because unlike most of her competition, Miuccia isn’t obliged to stay within this narrow lane of expression.” (TFL) Her vision was shown in her clothes, and that was part of their competitive advantage, presenting clothes that were never seen before, that represented a new fashion consumer. While Miuccia was revolutionizing the aesthetic division of the company, her husband, Patrizio Bertelli, was revolutionizing the Prada group. In the 1990s Prada was trying to consolidate themselves as a prestigious fashion group by acquiring stock of the Tuscan brand Gucci, fiercely challenging the ongoing takeover of Gucci by LVMH and while consolidating power over other independent brands, that somehow represented Prada’s stylistic philosophy like Helmut Lang and Jil Sander (in which they appointed Raf Simons as their creative director after Jil Sander quit from her role).
The success of Prada as a brand and as a company is the product of the hard work of both Miuccia and Bertelli, both co-CEOs of the company, which vision is to always take Prada to the next step, a thing they have done successfully by making it a company with estimated annual sales of over 5 billion dollars and a global operation, selling through their own retail stores in more than 600 locations, wholesaling, sponsoring their own sailing team, the Prada Lunarossa and supporting Fondazione Prada, a non-profit which aims to give visibility to up and coming contemporary artists. They have the talent to show the world their philosophy and aesthetic to all things Prada and create an ecosystem that represents what Prada really is.
