Prada

Mario Prada opened a leather goods shop in Milan's Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in 1913, selling handbags, luggage, and accessories. The shop was appointed official supplier to the Italian Royal House. Mario Prada built a reputation for quality and discretion. He also held a firm conviction, which he stated explicitly, that women should not be involved in running a business. His granddaughter Miuccia would prove him comprehensively wrong.

Miuccia Prada inherited the family business in 1978, having studied political science and trained as a mime artist. She had no fashion training. The company was struggling — sales were minimal, the brand had no direction, and several family members had already given up and sold their stakes. Miuccia, working with businessman Patrizio Bertelli who later became her husband, decided to rebuild the company around a single product: a black nylon backpack.

Prada's black nylon backpack, launched in 1985 and made from the industrial nylon used in military parachutes, was deliberately anti-fashionable — plain, functional, and made from a material associated with cheap utility rather than luxury. It became one of the most influential fashion objects of the 1980s, precisely because it rejected the prevailing aesthetic of visible logos and obvious luxury. Miuccia described her design philosophy as "making the ugly beautiful." Fashion critics initially couldn't decide whether to celebrate or condemn her. Eventually they did both.

The 2006 film "The Devil Wears Prada," based on Lauren Weisberger's novel, featured Meryl Streep as a thinly veiled Anna Wintour character named Miranda Priestly — who wore Prada exclusively. The film introduced Prada to hundreds of millions of people who had never engaged with fashion. Miranda Priestly's explanation of how cerulean blue was decided in the Prada collection before trickling down to discount bins became one of the most quoted passages in fashion culture — and the definitive articulation of how high fashion influences everything below it.

Prada Group reported revenues of €5.1 billion in 2024 — up 17% — driven primarily by Miu Miu, which had become the hottest brand in global luxury according to multiple industry indices, overtaking even Bottega Veneta and Balenciaga among fashion insiders. Miuccia's younger, more playful sister brand had eclipsed the parent brand in cultural heat while Prada itself maintained strong growth. Kering made acquisition overtures for Versace, which Prada declined. The woman whose grandfather had explicitly said women should not run the business had built one of the most respected fashion houses in the world — with a military-grade nylon backpack as its founding object.