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Mario Prada
Prada S.p.A. (Italian pronunciation: [ˈpraːda]) is an Italian luxury fashion house, specializing in ready-to-wear leather and fashion accessories, shoes, luggage, perfumes, watches, etc., founded in 1913 by Mario Prada.
History
The company was started in 1913 by Mario Prada and his brother Martino as a leathergoods shop – Fratelli Prada (English: Prada Brothers) – in Milan, Italy.Initially, the shop sold leather goods and imported English steamer trunks and handbags.
Mario Prada did not believe that women should have a role in business, and so he prevented female family members from entering into his company. Ironically, Mario's son harbored no interest in the business, so it was his daughter Luisa Prada who took the helm of Prada as his successor, and ran it for almost twenty years. Her own daughter, Miuccia Prada, joined the company in 1970, eventually taking over for her mother in 1978.
Miuccia began making waterproof backpacks out of Pocone.She met Patrizio Bertelli in 1977, an Italian who had begun his own leathergoods business at the age of 17, and he joined the company soon after. He advised Miuccia—and she followed the advice—on better decisions for the Prada company. It was his advice to discontinue importing English goods and to change the existing luggage.
Prada boutiques
Prada has commissioned architects, most notably Rem Koolhaas and Herzog & de Meuron, to design flagship stores in various locations. A duplex megastore was opened in Kuala Lumpur at the Pavilion Kuala Lumpur in late 2008. Prada commissioned an unusual multi-purpose building called the Prada Transformer in Seoul. And 2009 saw the opening of a new store on Corso Venezia, Milan, designed by architect Robert Baciocchi, focussing on the Prada Made to Order collection.In June 2012, Prada returned to the Middle East with the opening of its largest boutique ever in Dubai's Mall of the Emirates.
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