The History of Prada

hey everyone welcome back to through education today we'll be discussing the history of Prada and how it became one of the biggest brands in all of fashion but before getting into the video I just wanted to announce that I've officially launched the through education patreon there you'll find exclusive episodes about the business side of the fashion industry how to launch a successful brand case studies on different designers and much much more the first episode which is out right now is about how to create a signature product you'll also find Early Access to audio versions of

episodes like this one and there's no pressure to join but if you can and want to it's a great way to support the channel so that hopefully someday I can start making these free videos full time so with all of that said let's get into the video because this is one that I'm very excited about this is the history of Prada foreign to take things back to the very beginning we'll have to start in 1857 which is when Mario Prada was born in Milan Italy while not much is known about his childhood we do know

that once he was old enough he began working as a Salesman at a local leather goods shop to do his job well he learned as much as he could about the leather trade including how the leather tanning process works and what separated their high quality products from other low quality products over time he refined his skills as a Salesman as well as his knowledge of the leather industry and eventually arrived at the conclusion that he was ready to launch a leather goods shop of his own so in 1913 with the help of his brother Martino

Mario officially opened a shop called Fratelli Prada which is Italian for the Prada Brothers there they made imported and sold a range of leather goods including Trunks and bags but let me be very clear in saying that he wasn't branching off to start his own shop just for the sake of starting his own shot there were things he wanted to do differently and it all started with brand positioning you see as a Salesman Mario was keenly aware of the fact that customer perception was everything important to have extremely high quality Goods but it's equally if

not more important that your customers perceive them as high quality Goods in other words nobody wants to walk into a Dusty old leather shop and spend thousands of their hard-earned dollars no matter how nice the products are so for that reason Mario decided to open Fratelli Prada at the Galleria Vittorio Emmanuel II which is the oldest shopping mall in all of Italy and is known for being home to stores for many of the major luxury brands so you can see what the strategy was here renting a storefront at this Galleria may have been wildly expensive

but it was his way of showing customers that Prada's leather goods belonged among the best of the best of course this set a very high expectation of quality that the goods needed to live up to and they certainly did but the point is that this approach is what helped Mario establish his shop as one of the Premier leather shops in all of Italy that's exactly what it would become and in hindsight it's amazing how quickly all of this happened in 1919 just six years after its opening Fratelli Prada was named the official supplier of the

Italian Royal household meaning that they provided all of their luggage bags and other leather goods something interesting to note here is that being named the official supplier of the Italian Royal household gave Prado the right to use the house of Savoy's coat of arms on their products which is why even today it's often incorporated into the actual Prada logo so anyways it should come as no surprise that the Royal Family's endorsement of Prada helped solidify its status as an ultra luxury brand and from there it continued to grow but unfortunately in 1958 Mario Prada passed

away at the age of 101. he lived a long and fruitful life during which he built an incredibly strong Legacy but the question now became who would continue that Legacy who would take the Prada name and ensure that it would be known around the world for generations to come well that's where things get interesting you see Mario Prada grew up in a very different time and as The Story Goes he didn't really want any of the women in his family getting involved in his business sadly this patriarchal mindset was quite common back then so when

he passed away the expectation was that his son would be the one to inherit the brand but here's the thing his son wanted nothing to do with the brand it's not exactly clear why but for whatever reason he simply had no interest in taking over the business meaning that the only one left to do so was Mario's daughter Luisa Prada she knew that building upon the Legacy that her father had built would be no easy task but she was up to the challenge and over the course of the next 20 years she would help Prada

affirm its status as one of the world's top leather goods companies I mean she was definitely helping the brand move in the right direction and things were going well but the real spark came in 1978 when luis's daughter Maria Bianchi decided to join the family business as well and at first you might think that you've never heard of Maria Bianchi before but there's actually a good chance that you have because nowadays she goes by a different name and that name is mucha Prada Maria Bianchi was born on May 10 1949 to her parents Luigi Bianchi

and Louisa Prada now Maria whose family and friends called her mucha may have one of the most interesting paths to entering the fashion industry out of anyone we've talked about so far on the channel let me start by saying that yes she was born into the Prada family but in case I haven't already made this clear Prada wasn't really a fashion brand at this point in the story sure they made leather accessories like gloves and hats but their main focus was mostly leather bags and Luggage regardless mucha fell in love with fashion at a very

young age but didn't always want to pursue it as a career instead as crazy as it may sound she actually wanted to be a mime I don't think this was ever her long-term plan as she said her intent was just to explore the new and the unknown but either way she was committed and spent years studying and performing at the piccolo Teatro which is a theater in Milan so miming may have been a passion of hers but it was not her only passion because around this same time she also began studying political science and eventually

went on to earn her PhD in the field from the University of Milan now that actually leads me to a common point of controversy surrounding mucha Prada which is that she is or at least was an outspoken member of the Italy's Communist party in a later interview Mutual would go on to explain that back then nearly everyone in Italy that embraced the leftist ideologies would join the Communist party and as a strong proponent of feminism she did as well and I guess that makes sense I'm not trying to turn this into a political debate but

on paper keywords on paper one of the outcomes of Communism is supposed to be social and economic equality which is exactly what Progressive feminists such as Mutual wanted I mean you have to remember that her mother Luisa is the one that had essentially been cut out of the family business just because she was a woman but instead she decided to step up and take charge when the opportunity finally presented itself from yucha who was only nine years old when that happened this set an incredibly strong example which is why when she was old enough she

too wanted to join the family business and in 1970 that's exactly what she did now when she joined her mother Luisa was still the one running Prada leaving mucho to focus solely on accessories but by this point in time the brand was sort of hitting a plateau meaning that its growth had slowed down a bit and it was beginning to fade into the background among the countless other luxury goods companies in the market that however was all about to change Mutual knew that if Prada was going to remain relevant they needed to start doing things

differently so rather than working with leather she began refining a technique to make bags out of a waterproof nylon Fabric in the meantime there were a number of other things taking place behind the scenes as well for most it was in 1977 that mucha attended a trade show for leather goods companies and there she met a young man named Patricio Bertelli who owned a leather goods company of his own by 1978 the two of them were married and that very same year Luisa Prada decided to retire meaning that mucho was now the one in charge

with patricio's help Mutual set out to reinvent the brand and they wasted no time at all in 1979 Prada introduced its first ever line of women's Footwear and this was a huge step in the right direction because it let everyone know that they were capable of making products other than Trunks and Handbags speaking of which it was in the mid-1980s that mucha finally decided to unveil the nylon bags that she'd been working on and they were an instant hit looking at them now you might be wondering what the big deal was but let me break

this down a bit remember that Prada had already positioned itself as an ultra luxury brand and they've been able to do so because they sold extremely high quality leather goods but now she was adding nylon fabric into the mix and in the luxury Market using nylon for pretty much anything was unheard of instead it was typically reserved for stuff like rain gear or athletic gear because it's water resistant durable and has the ability to stretch so when muja came out with these nylon bags it was the last thing that Prada's luxury obsessed clientele could have

expected but that right there is what made it brilliant you see one of the reasons that Prada's growth had plateaued in the first place was a lack of innovation sure they had changed a few things here and there but for the most part they've been relying on the same product offering since the Brand's Inception back in 1913. mucha knew this and that's why these nylon bags were perfect they were unlike any other bag that other luxury Brands were offering at the time seemingly overnight they became the new so-called it bag and the famous triangle logo

became a status symbol but it wasn't just to show that you had money it was to show that you were at the Forefront of an emerging style movement one that embraced Chic functionality so this definitely helped give the brand some momentum but mucha didn't stop there with these bags Prada had gotten one step closer to becoming a true fashion brand and this is something she knew she had to capitalize on that said she started working on what would become Prada's first ever ready to wear collection and at long last the wait was finally over as

she debuted prado's fall winter 1988 collection generally speaking it was well received but some people were actually quite critical of it and that included mitcha herself you see leading up to the debut of this collection there was a lot of pressure put on her because everyone knew that this was Prada's only chance at making a first impression in the fashion industry to make a good first impression yes you do want to do something that's unique and makes you stand out as a brand but it's imperative that people actually want to wear it which is exactly

why there were people telling meuche to go for something a bit more traditional in other words they were telling her don't do anything too crazy just make something that we know people will like and that's what she did she went for a very reserved color palette that largely consisted of black and white and a lot of elegant yet simple cuts like I said it was well received and helped put Prada on the map but the truth is that Mutual was only just beginning to discover herself as a designer and over the course of subsequent Seasons

she did just that Having learned her lesson from the first collection Mutual became intently focused on establishing Prada's brand identity breaking into the ready to wear Market was certainly a step in the right direction but she was now faced with the challenge of differentiating product from all of the other ready to wear Brands out there so how was she going to do that well one of the first things she did was change her name as you may recall mucho was born with the last name Bianchi because that was her father's last name but at some

point during the 1980s despite the fact that she was already in her 30s she had her aunt go through the paperwork of adopting her so that she could legally change her last name to Prada it's not clear if that's the only reason she did it but it did in fact give her rights to the Prada name and I honestly believe that this was a smart decision because it reinforced the idea that Prada is a family-owned business that has become increasingly rare in the world of luxury fashion so the fact that Mario Prada's real granddaughter is

now the one running the show is actually quite amazing and I think that's something far fewer people would be aware of if she'd kept the last name Bianchi so that was one way that Mutual helped further develop Prada's brand identity but it was not the only way she also continued to develop the Brand's signature Design Elements which is absolutely essential for any brand that's trying to stand out from the crowd one that we already talked about was nylon fabric it has been such a success when she used it for her bags the mutual decided to

incorporate it into her ready to wear garments as well in this further products identity as the nylon brand but to take things a step further she also decided to introduce a signature color it goes without saying that this color which is referred to as Prada green is quite the attention grabber and that's why it became so popular Mutual started using this color in her collections which marked the shift away from the black and white color palette that we talked about earlier but more importantly this became the signature color of Prada stores as the brand became

more popular Prada stores began popping up in major cities around the globe and when customers walked in they'd see just about every surface painted in this distinct green Hue over time this creates brand Association many people naturally associate this color with Prada why is that so important well it helps make your pieces more recognizable without even seeing a logo someone could spot this color on a handbag from a mile away and instantly know that it's Prada as a master of marketing mucha understands how valuable that is and so that is how we got Prada green

but now going back to the collections themselves it's safe to say that by the 1990s she had fully hit her stride she'd struck the perfect balance between minimalism and luxury between sophistication and modernity there are a million different ways that you could describe it but the most popular way to describe it would be ugly Chic nowadays Mutual Prada is largely credited with starting the ugly Chic movement and while that might sound like an insult it's far from it something important to keep in mind is that Prada entered into the fashion industry at a point in

time where there were really two options the collections were either over the top and extremely gaudy or they were extremely conservative there wasn't much in between or at least that was the case until mucha came along rather than picking one end of the spectrum and sticking to it she said what if I take these loud prints and bright colors then work them into very modern clean-cut garments it's a relatively simple concept but it just hadn't been done the collection that people often point to as the Inception of ugly Chic was proud of spring summer 1996

collection titled banal eccentricity right off the bat you can deduce where the name ugly cheek comes from many of the looks featured patterns that wouldn't work well together at all it's not for the complementary color palettes and in others you can see the exact same pattern three times in three different colors from the way that I'm describing it you wouldn't expect this to work you'd expect this to be ugly but in reality the look comes off as effortlessly stylish or as some would call it Chic in a later interview Mutual reflected on this approach to

design saying ugly is attractive ugly is exciting maybe because it's newer and therein lies the point I'm trying to make the reason that this had such an impact on the fashion industry is because it had never really been seen before or at the very least it hadn't been executed this well but for so that is the origin of ugly Chic and it's a style that she continued to embrace in the years that followed she would of course deviate from it every now and then in favor of more traditionally beautiful collections but even with those she

was always looking to challenge the status quo challenging the status quo does of course open you up to criticism but that just comes with the territory mucha had climbed her way to the top of the fashion industry and as we're about to see she was just getting started foreign ICS around the world were quickly falling in love with Prada but they were also falling in love with mucha herself in a short amount of time she had become one of the most influential figures in fashion and people simply could not get enough of her work for

that reason it was in 1993 that she decided to launch mew mew mew mew which is just an abbreviated form of the name mucha is a sub-label of Prada that was created to offer a more playful more experimental line of women's wear collections nowadays mu mu is a highly successful brand in its own right and there's actually a fair amount of people that don't even know that it's associated with Prada but that just speaks to the fact that mucha is such a talented designer and doesn't necessarily need to rely on the Prada name to be

successful so all things considered launching Mew Mew was a fantastic move because it helped expand Prada's customer base speaking of which in the same year that Mew Mew made its debut Prada also made his first step towards menswear and the story behind this is actually quite interesting it starts with Neil Barrett an English fashion designer who attended Central Saint Martins and upon his graduation joint Gucci as a menswear designer joining Gucci was obviously a fantastic opportunity and it's one that he learned a lot from but after just five years he felt like he needed a

new challenge time and time again we've seen young designers in search of a challenge decide to launch their own labels but Neil had something else in mind instead he approached Patrizio Bertelli and pitched him the idea of launching a menswear line for Prada petrazio had already been looking for ways to build off of the success of meech's women's wear line so the timing couldn't have been better and he agreed to give it a go so just like that Neil Barrett got to work as Prada's new menswear director and two years later he made his debut

with the presentation of Prada's fall winter in 1995's collection this collection much like the ones that would follow it relied heavily upon simple Silhouettes and monochromatic colorways that might sound relatively plain but the reality is that Barrett fit in perfectly at the fashion house because he shared Mitch's affinity for elegant minimalism so the launch of Prada's first menswear collection was clearly the start of a new chapter in the Brand's history but that new chapter may not be what you think it is you see in addition to sharing her affinity for elegant minimalism Neil Barrett also

shared meuche's affinity for high performance material you remember how we talked about her use of waterproof nylon fabric well Neil started using nylon as well as a handful of other industrial grade materials to craft entire collections in fact to take things a step further it was in 1997 that he officially launched a new diffusion label called Prada sport as the name implies Prada sport was intended to be a line of high-end sportswear it was supposed to be functional and stylish you could wear it to work out but you could also wear it as everyday clothing

now in a sense Prada sport was just a continuation of what Misha had started years earlier with her nylon products but branding was important here by this time other major luxury Brands had started putting similar types of products into the market but by consolidating these products into a separate diffusion line called Prada sport Neil and mucha established Prada's image as a Pioneer in the luxury sportswear category and rightfully so today Prada sport is largely credited with Paving the way for what we call athleisure which is a mix of athletic wear and Leisure wear now as

I suggested just a second ago the problem with Paving the way is that other brands tend to follow suit and they follow suit quite quickly but Neil Barrett knew what he was doing you can create the coolest looking performance wear in the world but if people don't recognize it it probably won't catch on I mean the logic here is pretty simple at the end of the day no matter how functional it is we're talking about luxury products sure you can work out in it but the majority of people probably aren't going to I mean if

we're being honest luxury athleisure is supposed to be a casual Flex of sorts and that wasn't lost on Neil for that reason he decided that Prada sport products needed a defining design element and he went with the now iconic Red Line in congruence with the Brand's ethos of elegant minimalism the red line is incredibly simple yet striking despite the fact that it's tiny and you can hardly read the word Prada it's what your eye is immediately drawn to On Any Given product much like the product green that we talked about earlier you can spot this

little red line from a distance and instantly know that it's Prada one of the best examples of this was the America's World Cup sneaker which featured the famous red line on the tongue these were initially created for Prada's lunarosa sailing team to wear during the 1997 America's Cup race and once they became available to the public they were an instant hit products like these helped Prada sport achieve immense success in a very short amount of time but it wouldn't last forever in 1999 just two years after his debut Neil Barrett left Prada to launch his

own eponymous label he'd accomplished what he wanted at the fashion house and once again set out in search of a new challenge I'll note that this new Venture of his would also be a great success but that doesn't change the fact that Prada was now in a difficult position he'd played an instrumental role in both menswear Collections and Prada sport but now that he was gone the future of the fashion house once again rested in muchas hands heading into the 2000s mucho Prada faced a new set of challenges foremost Neil Barrett's exit had left her

solely in charge of Prada's menswear collections that wasn't a problem seeing as she'd been heavily involved in the direction of the menswear collections even while Neil was there but it now required more of her time and attention as if that weren't enough Prada and Mew Mew were both growing at rapid rates Prada had already cemented its position as one of the top luxury fashion houses in the world it had transcended fashion and become an undeniable Staple in popular culture one of many examples that I'm sure you could find would be the now classic 2006 film

The Devil Wears Prada by the time that the 2000s came around annual sales were soaring past the one billion dollar Mark and while that's great running a billion dollar company is no easy task and then you have to factor in that Mutual was overseeing the expansion of Mew Mew as well which had now added a line of eyewear and a line of fragrances to its repertoire taking all of that into consideration I'm not sure when Mutual even had time to sleep and actually if we're being honest some things did start to Fall by the wayside

I'm not sure if it's because she didn't have time or because she wanted to focus on other new projects but Prada sport definitely lost some of its momentum once Neil Barrett left there was a brief rebranding effort as what was once called Prada sport became known as Prada linearosa which is Italian for the red line but the brand still faded from the spotlight and was eventually discontinued at least that was the case up until 2018 when Mutual decided to bring back Prada sport now known as Linea Rosa by incorporating the line into her fall winter

2018 collections at first no one was really sure if this was a proper Revival or just a one-time reference to past collections but Prada later released a statement confirming the return of linearosa and describing it as a new facet in the Prada Universe in hindsight that's certainly what it's been as the Linea Rosa line is still going strong today and many of the most popular Prada products in recent years have come from linearosa So speaking of new facets in the Parada Universe it was in February of 2020 that the fashion house made an announcement that

sent waves throughout the entire industry the legendary designer RAF Simmons would be joining nucha as the co-creative Director of Prada for many people including myself this announcement seemed to have come out of nowhere it's not as if RAF was going to be taking on menswear while mija took on women's wear the two of them were going to be doing all of it together now when this was announced these types of Arrangements were not unheard of in the fashion industry but to my knowledge it was unheard of for two designers as independently successful as Raph and

mucha to team up like this and that's why it was so groundbreaking for more context check out my episode on the history of RAF Simmons but for the purposes of this episode just know that Raph had been brought on as the creative director of Calvin Klein back in 2016 but left rather abruptly towards the end of 2018. as far as why he left it's not 100 clear although there's speculation that he disagreed with how the brand was being managed whatever the case may be all we know for certain is that heading into 2019 Raph was

for all intents and purposes a free agent and his decision to join Calvin Klein in the first place made it clear that he wanted to be at a major fashion house knowing this it was actually Patricio Bertelli who approached draft with the idea of joining Prada you see rafet served as the creative director of Jill sander from 2005 up until 2012 and Jill sander is owned by the Prada group so Raph and Patricio had already been working together for quite a while the opportunity for a reunion presented itself neither of them could pass it up

and mutual was more than pleased to have a designer as brilliant as Raph joined the team now admittedly when this announcement first came out I was intrigued but wasn't sure that their Styles would work all that well with one another both designers have a track record of being rebellious and challenging the status quo but much's approach is much more Chic and minimalist where raps is more Punk and Street inspired nevertheless all we could do was wait and see and in September of 2020 we finally got our answer as the duo presented their spring 2021 ready

to wear collection now add face value this collection is great but it's only when you start to peel back the layers that you realize just how great it really is in many ways it was the Perfect Blend of each designer's signature Style the Silhouettes and materials screamed mucha while the more intricate details and motifs scream giraffe there was of course overlap between the two but all in all I think they struck the perfect balance the best way to put it is that if you told me this was a raft collection I wouldn't be surprised and

if you told me it was a mutual collection I wouldn't be surprised neither one of them was overbearing and I think that's a reflection of their ability to work together in a cohesive manner which is not easy to do I might add many other designers in the industry would let their ego get in the way but that was not the case here and the outcome was fantastic although this collection does have elements of both RAF and Prada it's clear to me that they were both venturing into new territory and that's the benefit of having a

partnership like this they're able to check Challenge and build off of each other's ideas to create a collection that only the two of them could make so needless to say the newly formed Duo made a very strong first impression and now here we are more than two years later and they haven't slowed down a bit my other concern with this partnership was announced is that it was going to be a temporary residency type thing where Raph only stayed for a few seasons but obviously that is not the case in fact back in November of 2022

RAF announced that he'd officially be discontinuing his beloved namesake label so this leads me to believe that moving forward he will be focusing entirely on Prada that said I can't wait to see what these two accomplish together they're two of the most influential designers in the history of fashion and now that they've joined forces the possibilities seem endless Looking Back Now it's truly amazing to think about where Prada is today it all started back in 1913 when a leather salesman named Mario Prada decided to open up his own shop thanks to his hard work and

dedication that shop became the Italian Royal household sole supplier of leather goods things were going great but Mario passed away and his son had no desire to take over the family business that right there could have been the end of the story but fortunately his daughter Louisa stepped in and kept it going when she was old enough Louisa passed the business onto her own daughter mucha and that is when the trajectory of Prada changed forever under mucha's guidance Prada became a full-fledged fashion house and with her husband patricio's help they turned it into a global

business before long Prada was a household name and the crazy part is that they're showing no signs of stopping with the reintroduction of linearosa and the appointment of RAF Simmons as co-creative director Prada is actively investing in its future seeing stuff like this gives me a lot of Hope for the fashion industry because I think that sometimes we get caught in the mindset that certain brands like Louis Vuitton Gucci and Prada are so big that they'll be around forever and to be honest they probably will be but Prada isn't resting on its laurels mucha Patricio

and wrath are all well aware of the fact that fashion is changing by being proactive they've decided that they're not going to be Trend Chasers they're going to be taste makers they're going to continue Paving the path forward just like they always have anyways that's all for now if you liked this video and want to see more like it please remember to like comment subscribe and also another reminder join the through education patreon if you want early access to episodes like these as well as access to exclusive content other than that thank you all for

watching for education and I will see you next time