Miuccia Bianchi Prada (; born Maria Bianchi on 10 May 1949) is an Italian

billionaire A billionaire is a person with a net worth of at least one billion (1,000,000,000, i.e., a thousand million) units of a given currency, usually of a major currency such as the United States dollar, euro, or pound sterling. The American busi ...

fashion designer and businesswoman. She is the head designer of

Prada Prada S.p.A. (, ; ) is an Italian luxury fashion house founded in 1913 in Milan by Mario Prada. It specializes in leather handbags, travel accessories, shoes, ready-to-wear, and other fashion accessories. Prada licenses its name and branding t ...

and the founder of its subsidiary Miu Miu. As of October 2021, ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also r ...

'' estimated her net worth at US$4.8 billion. In June 2021, ''Bloomberg'' estimated her net worth to be $6.62 billion, ranked 464th in the world.– Bloomberg.com
/ref> The youngest granddaughter of Mario Prada, Miuccia Prada took over the family-owned

luxury goods In economics, a luxury good (or upmarket good) is a good (economics), good for which demand (economics), demand increases more than what is proportional as income rises, so that expenditures on the good become a greater proportion of overall spend ...

manufacturer in 1978. Since then, the company has acquired Jil Sander, Helmut Lang and shoemaker Church & Co. In 2002, Prada opened her own

contemporary art Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic ...

museum. In March 2013, Prada was named one of the fifty best dressed over-50s by ''Forbes''. The magazine listed her as the 75th most powerful woman in the world in 2014, when she had an estimated net worth of $11.1 billion.

Early life and education

Born Maria Bianchi on 10 May 1949 in Milan, she took the name Miuccia Prada in the 1980s, after being adopted by an aunt. Her biological parents were Luigi Bianchi and Luisa Prada. She has two older siblings, Albert and Marina. Prada attended Liceo Classico Berchet high school in Milan and graduated with a PhD in

political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and ...

at the University of Milan.

Career

Early beginnings

Prada trained at the Teatro Piccolo to become a mime and performed for five years. She was a member of the Italian Communist Party and involved in the

women's rights Women's rights are the rights and entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st centuries. In some countri ...

movement during the seventies in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city ...

Career at Prada

By the mid-Seventies,

Susannah Frankel Susannah Frankel is a British fashion journalist and writer who, since the 1980s, has worked with a number of newspapers and publications. She was the leading journalist chosen by the Fashion Museum, Bath, to choose the defining Dress of the Year ...

(February 21, 2004)
Miuccia Prada: The feeling is Miuccia
''

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'' Prada entered into her family's business of manufacturing luxury leather bags, a company established by her grandfather in 1913. She initially oversaw the design of accessories. In 1978 she met her future husband and business partner, Patrizio Bertelli. Prada's first successful handbag design was in 1985. It was a line of black, finely-woven

nylon Nylon is a generic designation for a family of synthetic polymers composed of polyamides ( repeating units linked by amide links).The polyamides may be aliphatic or semi-aromatic. Nylon is a silk-like thermoplastic, generally made from pet ...

handbags. By 1989, she designed and introduced her first women's ready-to-wear collection. In 1995 she launched her first menswear line. The Miu Miu line was introduced in 1992 as a less expensive womenswear line inspired by her personal wardrobe. She named it after her own nickname, Miu Miu. In 1994, Prada showed her collections in both New York and London fashion weeks. She had already been exhibiting at Milan fashion week. Bertelli, Prada's husband, is responsible for the commercial side of products and Prada's retail strategy. The design house has grown into a conglomerate that includes labels such as Helmut Lang, Jil Sander, and Azzedine Alaïa. The company has expanded into leather goods, shoes, fragrances, and apparel for both men and women. As of 2014, Prada is the co-CEO of Prada, together with her husband. In 2020, Prada presented her final collection as the brand's sole creative director; because of the

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, it was unveiled in a sequence of short films directed by artists including Martine Syms and Juergen Teller.Lauren Indvik (December 4, 2020)
Miuccia Prada on breaking the luxury machine
''

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nik ...

''. She has since been sharing that responsibility with Raf Simons.

Other activities

In 2010, Prada designed costumes for the Verdi opera "

Attila Attila (, ; ), frequently called Attila the Hun, was the ruler of the Huns from 434 until his death in March 453. He was also the leader of a tribal empire consisting of Huns, Ostrogoths, Alans, and Bulgars, among others, in Central and E ...

" at the New York City Metropolitan Opera House.

Business philosophy

Prada deliberately avoids merging high art with fashion, saying "Art is for expressing ideas and for expressing a vision. My job is to sell."

Recognition

Awards and honors

Exhibitions

Along with designer

Elsa Schiaparelli Elsa Schiaparelli ( , also , ; 10 September 1890 – 13 November 1973) was a fashion designer from an Italian nobility, Italian aristocratic background. She created the Schiaparelli (fashion house), house of Schiaparelli in Paris in 1927, w ...

, Prada was the subject of the 2012 exhibition, "Impossible Conversations" at the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

Controversy

In early 2014, Prada and Patrizio Bertelli were put under investigation as part of a tax avoidance probe by Milan prosecutors. By 2016, both paid more than 400 million euros ($429 million) to settle their tax positions.

Personal life

Prada is married to Patrizio Bertelli, a businessman. Their two sons were born in 1988 and 1990 the elder being rally driver

Lorenzo Bertelli Lorenzo Bertelli (born 10 May 1988) is an Italian businessman in the fashion industry and a rally driver. He is the son of Prada majority owners; fashion designer Miuccia Prada and her husband, the businessman Patrizio Bertelli. Bertelli has b ...

. The couple lives in the apartment where she was born. Prada is a collector of contemporary art and owns several artworks by Young British Artists. She is friends with the artists Cindy Sherman and Francesco Vezzoli. Over several years, Prada acted as a godmother to a Luna Rossa boat nine times.

Honour

* : Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (21 december 2015)

References

External links

* *
Women in Fashion biography
from ''Time magazine''
Miuccia Bianchi PradaMiuccia Prada biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Prada, Miuccia 1949 births Living people Fashion designers from Milan 21st-century Italian businesswomen Italian women fashion designers Female billionaires Italian art collectors Women art collectors Italian billionaires Italian communists Italian women's rights activists Italian mimes University of Milan alumni Prada 20th-century Italian businesswomen Knights Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic