This Italian luxury fashion house is one of the most respected and coveted brands in the fashion world – Prada. Started in Milan over 100 years ago by Prada Brothers, The luxury group now produces men’s and women’s leather goods, clothing and footwear, combining contemporary, cutting-edge sophistication with one-of-a-kind, sublimely-crafted products.
History
Prada was founded in 1913 by Fratelli Prada and Mario Prada, Miuccia Prada’s grandfather, in Milan. Located in the prestigious Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, Prada was an exclusive, stylish store selling luggage, accessories and luxury goods, in fine materials and of sophisticated workmanship.
The Milan store quickly became a firm favorite with the Italian aristocracy and the most sophisticated members of the European elite. In 1919 Prada received the warrant of “Official Supplier of the Italian Royal Household”, and since then has been able to display the royal Savoy coat of arms and figure-of-eight knots alongside the company logo.
Mario Prada did not believe that women should have a role in business, and so he prevented female family members from entering into his company. Ironically, Mario’s son harbored no interest in the business, so it was his daughter Luisa Prada who took the helm of Prada as his successor, and ran it for almost twenty years. Her own daughter, Miuccia Prada, joined the company in 1970, eventually taking over for her mother in 1978.
Miuccia began making waterproof backpacks out of Pocone. She met Patrizio Bertelli in 1977, an Italian who had begun his own leathergoods business at the age of 17, and he joined the company soon after. He advised Miuccia—and she followed the advice—on better decisions for the Prada company. It was his advice to discontinue importing English goods and to change the existing luggage.
Patrizio Bertelli broke new ground in the luxury goods sector, introducing a new business model in which he kept direct, internal control over all processes, applying uncompromised quality criteria across the entire production cycle. Miuccia Prada’s creative talent and avant-garde approach attracted the attention of the global fashion industry, while her ability to look at the world from an unconventional vantage point allowed her not only to anticipate, but quite often, to set new trends.
Prada’s originality made it one of the most influential fashion houses, and the brand became a premium status symbol in the 1990s. By 1993 Prada was awarded the Council of Fashion Designers of America award for accessories.
Innovation is at the core of Prada’s success, with no sector escaping the Group’s avante-garde approach, distribution included. Prada was the first brand to launch a new type of store, known as “Prada Epicentres”, designed by internationally-acclaimed architects such as Rem Koolhaas, and Herzog & de Meuron, both winners of the Pritzker Prize (the Nobel for architecture).
See also: Top Luxury Brands | Hugo Boss
Prada Spring/Summer 2016 Fashion Show in Indefinite Hangar
For the Spring / Summer 2016 Prada men’s show AMO investigates the perception of continuous space through an invasion of the ceiling.
Plastic sheets hang down acting as a virtual mold that defines the catwalk and seating areas, while the concrete ground area acts as the negative of the above scene.
The fiberglass and polycarbonate stalactites manipulate the proportions and perspectives of the brutal and industrial space. These alternating levels of views and transparencies introduce the guests to a blurred horizon.
Arranged in elliptical benches that are determined by the ceiling installation, they never perceive the room as a whole.
The wall, floor and seats, covered in concrete, emerge as a remnant, disturbing the boundaries between seating and catwalk.
The Prada Inside Bag
An iconic new design with a secret Prada twist at its core: a carefully concealed twin bag within its supple architecture . At once playful and seductive, graceful and subversive, it seamlessly blends rich tradition with daring originality.
Beautifully paired in a colourful selection of classic and novel shades, outer and inner bag can be matched tone-on-tone, or creatively contrasted to reflect the individual spirit of its owner.
Developed by Prada’s skilled artisans, the outer bag is linked to its double through a complex design that unites Prada’s heritage of supreme craftsmanship with ingenious innovation. The inner bag is joined through two folds to the outer, without any internal frame. The result is an incredibly soft bag, each taking many hours to hand-craft.
Prada Fashion for Women
Prada Handbags for Women
Prada Footwear for Women
Prada Wallets for Women
Prada Accessories for Women
Prada Jewels for Women
Prada Sunglasses for Women
Prada Fashion for Men
Prada Bags for Men
Prada Footwear for Men
Prada Wallets for Men
Prada Small Accessories for Men
Prada Sunglasses for Men
Miu Miu
From its inception in 1993 Miu Miu was a private territory of expression and a creative playground, fittingly christened with Miuccia Prada’s family nickname. At a time when Prada was at its most minimalist, Miu Miu offered a counterpoint: a sensual, rebellious take on dressing-up.
Early shows were staged in New York, London and Milan, but the world of Miu Miu crystalized when the label first showed in Paris in 2006. Embracing both couture savoir-faire and refined experimentalism, Miu Miu explores fashion as a rarefied form, giving elegance and sophistication a new and twisted meaning. Diverse inspirations, playing on masculine and feminine, historic references and a jilted modernity come together unexpectedly.
Miu Miu’s communication strategy is inspired by its design point of view. Its groundbreaking advertising campaigns with cutting-edge photographers are looked forward to each season. More than just ad campaigns, the campaign artwork adds nuance and subtext to the collections themselves, the depth and variety conveying the complex layers of the Miu Miu woman. The attempt is to define a fluid, uncontrived, even contradictory vision of modern femininity.
Occupying some of the world’s prime retail positions in cities including New York, London, Paris, Milan, Tokyo, Beijing and Hong Kong, Miu Miu’s global boutiques are the bricks and mortar embodiment of the experimental spirit of the brand. Conceived as continually evolving sets, the shops suggest a dramatic but playful attitude to shopping and dressing up.
Gallery
See also: Top Luxury Brands | Lacoste
