Identity area
Type of entity
Corporate body
Authorized form of name
Prada (Firm)
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
1913-
History
Prada was founded in Milan in 1913 by Mario Prada as a luxury leather-goods firm. Miuccia Prada took charge of her grandfather's company in 1978. Her first big success was a black nylon backpack with a triangular silver label. Soon her shoe and handbag designs became the focus of a veritable cult of fashionable consumers in Europe, America, and Japan. Miuccia Prada and her husband and business partner, Patrizio Bertelli, maintain close control over the company. They added a ready-to-wear line in 1989 and inaugurated the younger, slightly less expensive Miu Miu line in 1992, followed by Prada Sport, whose iconic red line is almost as recognized in certain circles as Nike's swoosh symbol. A string of shops and boutiques in Paris, New York, and San Francisco, designed in collaboration with the architect Rem Koolhaas, became instantly famous. Prada also engaged in a series of complex ownership maneuvers in the late 1990s, buying and selling stakes in Gucci, Fendi, and other companies and forming a partnership with Azzedine Alaïa in 2000.