We The Italians | Great Italians of the Past: Miuccia Prada

Great Italians of the Past: Miuccia Prada

Great Italians of the Past: Miuccia Prada

  • WTI Magazine #105 Jul 21, 2018
  • 6282

Designated by Forbes as the richest woman in Italy in 2013, Miuccia Prada is one of the great symbols of Italian fashion. Her name, famous throughout the world, is one of the more refined and renowned brand in the international market.

Miuccia was born in Milan on May 10, 1948. Her mother Luisa Prada was a manager of the family company. After studying Political Science, she began working in 1971 in the company that bears her name. In 1977 she met Patrizio Bertelli, who will become CEO of the group, leaving the artistic management to Miuccia.

In the early '80s Miuccia Prada invents a particular type of nylon, very similar to that used for the realization of the parachute, with which she produces a collection of bags strictly black and without any logo. The bags have an affordable prize and soon the gain a global success. Miuccia’s collection is among the most popular and original of the international scene. Her creative genius is shown in her first prêt-à-porter, for autumn-winter 1988.

The range of clothing will play on the contrast between black and white and will definitely launch Miuccia on the forefront of international fashion. By then, the brand will be always present at the fashion shows in Milan both in February and in September.

Miuccia Prada decides to re-launch her name in 1993, creating the brand Miu Miu, fresher and intended for a younger audience. In the meantime, with the birth of the male line in 1994 and Prada Sport in 1997, the group Prada SpA keeps growing and is, today, a world leader in high fashion.

Miuccia Prada's talent goes beyond the boundaries of business and fashion and enters right in the more purely artistic world. All the big fashion houses recognize her extraordinary ability to match patterns, colors and fabrics with originality and depth major art.

 With her talent to understand many different influences and mix elements apparently irreconcilable, and with the courage to work with artists who are not part of the same fashion crews and places, Miuccia Prada urges to deconstruct established patterns over the years, rereading the needs of contemporary fashion, with an eye to women's freedom of expressing themselves without having to follow archaic rules, now far from today's reality.

Due to her artistic value, as well as her business one, Miuccia Prada has received several international awards: in 2000 the Honorary Doctorate from the Royal College of Art in London and the Honorary Award of the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York; in 2006 she was named Officier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture; in 2013 she won as "International Designer of the Year" at the British fashion awards.

International symbol of fashion, one of the great glories of the Italian culture in the world, Miuccia Prada outlines, with a few simple words, her extraordinary originality and versatility: "Inside of me live together many different women. I don’t like good taste, I don’t like the beautiful. Refinement and taste are easy to me, but it bothers me a lot to give up to their domain. I want to analyze the ugly. The artists do so, they filmmakers do so, why shouldn’t do so those who create fashion?"