What the thing is
Prada is a Milan-based luxury fashion house founded in 1913 as Fratelli Prada, initially a leather goods shop selling imported English steamer trunks and accessories.
Where it came from
It began in 1913 in Milan’s Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, co-founded by Mario Prada and his brother Martino, sourcing English-made travel goods and luxury items.
In 1919 Prada was appointed Official Supplier to the Italian Royal Household and built the House of Savoy’s coat of arms and knotted rope design into its logo. Mario Prada’s son had no interest in the business, so his daughter Luisa succeeded him and ran the house for almost twenty years. Luisa’s daughter Miuccia joined in 1970 and took over in 1978. She met Patrizio Bertelli in 1977, and it was his advice to stop importing English goods and to change the existing luggage. The house today licenses its name to Luxottica for eyewear and to L’Oréal for fragrances and cosmetics.
What it gets right
It established a high-end retail presence in Milan’s Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II using imported English leather goods and rare objects.
Miuccia Prada released her first backpacks and totes in 1979, made from the tough military-spec black nylon her grandfather had used to cover steamer trunks. They were hard to sell, because there was little advertising and the prices were high, but they became her first commercial hit. In 1983 a second Milan boutique opened in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, on the site of the old “London House” emporium, and the house began opening shops in Florence, Paris, Madrid and New York. A shoe line followed in 1984, the “classic Prada handbag” in 1985 and women’s ready-to-wear in 1988, whose designs became known for dropped waistlines and narrow belts.
What it gets wrong
Mario Prada barred women from the business, enforcing patriarchal gatekeeping that persisted until his daughter Luisa inherited control—despite having excluded her for decades.
Why it matters now
It shows how a brand’s foundational exclusions—gendered, geographic, material—can be inverted decades later not by reform but by reappropriation: Miuccia Prada turned her grandfather’s military-spec trunk nylon into a symbol of anti-luxury luxury.
Journalists praised Miuccia Prada’s “ugly chic” style from 1996, which at first confused customers by offering blatantly unsexy outfits. The house has since commissioned architects including Rem Koolhaas and Herzog & de Meuron to design flagship stores, and in 2019 it announced that fur would be dropped from all its brands from 2020.
Is it worth your time
Yes—if you care how luxury brands institutionalise exclusion while later repurposing their own material contradictions.
