High Fashion Design

Miuccia Prada's grandfather opened a boutique selling high quality leather goods and accessories in 1913 in Milan. Miuccia Prada and her husband, Patrizio Bertelli, reluctantly took control of the floundering business. Patrizio took charge of management while Miuccia, who had eschewed the family business to take a Ph.D. degree in political science, designed collections. Now, over two decades later, they head a eight-hundred-million-dollar business.

Miuccia Prada and her husband Patrizio Bertelli took over the family-run leather goods and accessories business in 1978. She had no ostensible design experience, having opted instead to take a PhD in political science. Nonetheless, she has succeeded in building Prada into one of the most coveted brand names of the late '90s. Beginning with Prada's first ready-to-wear collection in 1989, she established a techno minimalism based on pared-down design, innovative fabrics and computer-enhanced patterns. Anticipating the general weariness with utility wear, she surprised everyone with a conventionally dressy collection in October '99.

"Our idea is to mix technology with normal dressing...In the long term, I see formal dressing for special occasions and an increasing number of people wearing sportswear almost all day long." - International Herald Tribune, April '98
Since the mid-1990s, there have been few status symbols as potent as the Prada-embossed silver triangle.
The power of the Prada badge is such that it transforms even an ordinary black nylon knapsack into a must-have accessory. But it has not always been that way. Before the arrival of Miuccia Prada, and, especially before Uma Thurman sauntered down the red-carpeted Academy Awards in that spectacular lavender chiffon dress, Prada was just a family-run leather goods business stuck in the fashion backwaters of Milan. The combination of smart management, clever designs, and media might turned Prada into, well, beach-front property sitting atop a gold mine.

Prada did not venture into ready-to-wear until 1989. Miuccia Prada's first collection was a seemingly impossible contradiction: a minimalist reincarnation of the 1970s. We recognized the bell-bottoms and the peasant blouses, but they were stripped of hippy frou-frou and rendered in neutral shades.

Since then, Miuccia Prada has guided the company's ready-to-wear line into inventive territory. There was the Mondrian-inspired collection of white dresses decorated with thin red strips ending in dots like long, skinny exclamation marks. Critics praised her spring-summer '98 show for its embroidered latex, horizontal beading and flowers. Wavy, uncertain hems gave the collection a homespun feel while computer-generated prints kept it future-savvy.

Prada has also made a name for itself in fabric innovation. Miuccia Prada has experimented with translucent latexes and papery polyamides, mixed plastics and satins, and incorporated strips of film and mirror fragments into her clothing.
The success of the flagship Prada line led the company to start the youth-targeted 'Miu Miu' line in 1992.

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