Prada

Prada was founded in 1913 by Mario Prada and his brother Martino as Fratelli Prada, a leather goods shop in Milan, with the first store opening in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, where they sold bags, trunks, and travel accessories. The original proposition was narrow, finely made leather travel goods and imported English trunks for an aristocratic Milanese clientele.

In 1919, the quality of the product attracted the attention of the Italian Royal House and made Prada its official supplier, a recognition that allowed Prada to display the House of Savoy coat of arms in its triangle logo and became a symbol of the Italian aristocracy and upper-middle class. For most of the century that followed, Prada was understood as a maker of fine luggage, nothing more.

Menswear arrived late and shifted the reading of the house. The mid-1980s launch of the black nylon Vela backpack and tote introduced functional minimalism; Prada expanded into women’s ready-to-wear in 1988 and men’s in 1993, the same year Miuccia launched Miu Miu.

The men’s design language followed the women’s, slim trousers, boxy jackets cut close to the body, flat-front technical nylon outerwear, and suiting in wool and mohair, often lined or trimmed with Saffiano leather. Saffiano leather is traced back to Mario Prada, making it a signature material, and what makes Saffiano stand apart is the slightly rough texture, which ensures durability and makes it much more scratch resistant than softer leathers, made from full grain calf leather.

Within Milan, Prada occupied a different space from Armani’s softer tailoring or Versace’s ornamentation, closer in spirit to Jil Sander and Helmut Lang. By the 1990s, Prada was perceived as a luxury brand, a designation credited to originality in its designs.

The creative direction shifted in 2020 when Raf Simons joined the house of Prada, taking up the role of co-creative director, working alongside Miuccia Prada with equal responsibilities for creative decision-making, an unconventional configuration, with the appointment effective April 2, 2020.

On April 10, 2025, Prada acquired Versace from Capri Holdings group for 1.25 billion euros, laying the foundations for the creation of a large Italian fashion group that can rival the French ones. In menswear today, Prada dresses a mixed audience of art-world professionals, tech executives, and younger buyers drawn in through Linea Rossa and the sneaker line, sitting at the top of the Italian market alongside Loro Piana and Brunello Cucinelli, though with a colder, more conceptual point of view.