Who Owns Prada?

Mario Prada founded Fratelli Prada in Milan in 1913 as a leather goods shop in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, selling trunks, handbags, and travel accessories to the Italian aristocracy. The company held a royal warrant as supplier to the House of Savoy, putting the knotted rope and coat of arms in its early logo.

The house remained a respected but modest Milanese atelier until Mario's granddaughter Miuccia inherited it in 1978. A political science PhD and former mime, she had no fashion training but a radical eye. With husband Patrizio Bertelli, a Tuscan leather goods manufacturer, she built the modern Prada.

The 1984 black nylon backpack made industrial fabric into luxury, and the 1988 debut of ready-to-wear established Prada as a fashion house with an intellectual aesthetic: muted colors, awkward proportions, deliberately challenging taste. Through the 1990s the brand defined minimalist luxury while Miu Miu (launched 1993) captured the experimental, youth-oriented side.

The 2000s brought global retail expansion, a perfume franchise under license, and eventual public listing. Prada chose Hong Kong for its 2011 IPO, an unusual exchange for a European house that signaled where luxury growth was heading.

The brand's cultural footprint includes the 2006 film "The Devil Wears Prada," Fondazione Prada's art institution, and the Luna Rossa sailing campaign, which has contested the America's Cup since 2000 and anchors a sportswear line. Recent years saw a creative partnership with Raf Simons from 2020 until his announced departure in October 2025, returning Miuccia Prada to sole creative direction.