Miuccia Prada: A Biography of the “Lady” Through Her Most Iconic Looks

“How to be elegant and well dressed? Study! Study fashion, study cinema, study art and then study yourself.” Sixty-eighter, feminist, entrepreneur, visionary, art lover, patron. For fashion (and not only) Miuccia Prada is a living legend.

“What you wear is your way of presenting yourself to the world, especially today when we live in an era where human contact is so rapid. Fashion is an instant language.” Born Maria Bianchi , she has been called Miuccia since she was a child, but for those in the industry she is simply “Signora” . Berchet High School, a ’68er, a feminist. During her university years, she was a member of the PCI “Carlo Marx” section of Porta Romana , the neighborhood where the family building stands – where she has lived since she was born in 1948. “Anyone who was curious in those days was left-wing. But our PCI was conservative: the kids went with the Student Movement. I was the area representative of the Italian Women’s Union. Serious stuff.” In 1971 she joined the family business – founded by her grandfather Mario in 1913 – after graduating in political science from the University of Milan and studying acting at the Piccolo Teatro. There she met her future husband Patrizio Bertelli with whom she began a personal and professional partnership. The inverted triangle – the company’s new logo – arrived in the 1980s, as did new technical materials (among them Re-Nylon). “ Women are often unwilling to admit how much they like fashion. Yet everyone likes fashion, from the taxi driver to the mega-intellectual. I’ve often wondered why this happens. I don’t know the answer.” The first shoe line came in 1983, the first women ‘s ready-to-wear collection in 1988. In 1993 she debuted with Miu Miu , in 1995 with Prada men and two years later with the sports line, Linea Rossa . Always passionate about art and jewelry, in 1995 she founded the Foundation that bears the family name with her husband, which now has four offices, two in Milan, one in Venice and one in Shanghai. In the world of fashion, top figures are often mythologized. However, the “Lady” has always retained a naïve spirit (or perhaps it is just a lot of pragmatism, a very Milanese quality) accompanied by a large dose of sarcasm. When she had the artist Carsten Höller build her a slide that starts from her office and ends in the courtyard of the company in via Bergamo, she says ironically: “The idea is that, while you go down, at least for a moment you are happy.”