ANGLE OF REPOSEMiuccia Prada, photographed at the Prada Foundation in Venice wearing Prada.
Afterward, several of us gathered around a table for lunch.
The lunch was simple: chicken patties, braised endive, spinach, and salad.
ANGLE OF REPOSEMiuccia Prada, photographed at the Prada Foundation in Venice wearing Prada. Miu Miu shoes.
There is not much, I would come to understand, that Prada doesnottake a close interest in.
She is surprisingly warm, self-deprecating, and has a gentle, musical laugh.
I want culture to be attractive, she said.
SHES GOT THE LOOKSGigi Hadid in archival Prada and Miu Miu.
(Prada Group also has a stake in Churchs shoes.)
The second third of her life, she says, is culture and the Fondazione.
Since its creation in 1993, the Prada Foundation has become a leading proponent of contemporary art.
After, there is family and friends, and possibly some pleasures.
She paused to reconsider.
Actually, they all overlap.
I attempt to make my life useful.
Prada likes the worduseful;she dislikes the wordluxury,which she finds vulgar.
I always thought there were only two noble professions: politicians or doctors, she told me.
Doing clothes [while coming from] a group of very important intellectualsfor me it was like a nightmare.
I was so ashamed, but anyway I did it….
The love of beautiful objects prevailed.
Her political opinions have mostly had to be kept private.
I work for a luxury company, she said, laughing at the irony.
Its not perfect for a political position like minethis was always the biggest contradiction in my life.
Miuccia Prada was born Maria Bianchi into a well-heeled bourgeois Milanese family in 1949.
When I was young, Prada told me, I always wanted to be different.
SHE’S GOT THE LOOKSGigi Hadid in archival Prada and Miu Miu.
Some people, I suggested, dont want to do what everyone around them is doing.
That is probably really deeply a part of myself, Prada acknowledged.
Prada and Bertelli had a son, Lorenzo, only two months after that first show.
SHE’S GOT THE LOOKSGigi Hadid in archival Prada and Miu Miu.
(A second, Giulio, followed two years later.)
When I asked her how she had managed that first year, she was sanguine.
Probably, we like to be working, we like to be active.
CROUCHING TIGERPrada, fall 2017
To have an idea of a woman as a beautiful silhouetteno!
Prada said to me.
I give a shot to respect womenI tend not to do bias dresses, super-sexy.
TALL ORDERPrada, fall 2013
I have a go at be creative in a way that can be worn, that can be useful.
SWEET AND LOWDOWNGigi on the move in fall 2017 Prada.
One whole collection was made of nylon; another was an ironic exploration of her own dislike of lace.
FRINGE CANDIDATEPrada, fall 2007
She played around with 1950s nostalgia, 1980s minimalism, and hideous color schemes from the 1970s.
Success was sudden and stratospheric.
Risk is something I kind of like.
CANAL PLUS“I like to push,” Prada says, “because in the push you become more creative, more intelligent.”
Miuccia is just being very true to herself, said Bertelli, explaining his wife and partner to me.
More than mere form and function, Pradas clothes are, she insists, narrative.
I am interested in the lives of people, she said.
RUFFLED AND READYMiu Miu, spring 2024
So, its notdesigningits putting together personalities, histories, pieces of life, good, bad.
Thats why I am always ashamed, she told me.
Its something real, tangibleits not just a gesture, she said.
WALKING THE WALKPrada, spring 2024
If you really want to be generous, you have to impact your life.
Prada cleaves to a kind of no-nonsense practicality.
I do clothes for a commercial company, and our goal is to sell clothes, she says.
LEANING INThe designer in a rare moment of rest. “I am better at working than talking,” she says.
We should be able to be who we choose to be, always.
Instead, she wants people to feel confidentthat they can perform in life.
Fashion is a representation of ones vision of the world.
Because otherwise, I think fashion is useless.
THROUGH THE AGESGigi goes deep in the Prada and Miu Miu archives.
I met Miuccia Prada for the second time at her apartment in Milan.
Looking at the many books surrounding us, I asked her what she was reading.
I read one third so far!
The Prada Foundation is an outlet for Miuccia Pradas intellectual brio.
I hate the idea of being a collector, she said.
For me, it was kind of part of the learning process.
Im trying, she said, in my last years to be more political, more effective.
The Prada Foundation opened its site in Milan in 2015.
It tries to convince people that art plays a role in our life.
Its not about moneyits about bringing together efforts, people; proposing and finding solutions.
On a Saturday, Demand says, the space is full of people walking and talking.
Milanese people really use it as a corso, a promenade, he said.
Hes incredibly interesting, Prada told me.
He talked about the structure of conducting, what it means to be a conductor.
He said how much every single phrase, every single note has a reason.
Miuccia is like a one-person salon.
Prada says she has very little social life, but this is a little disingenuous.
She loves to be confronted by people with different points of view.
I am better at working than talking, Prada said.
If I want to know somebody, I want to work with them.
All the enthusiasm, the researchI like working, its a way of really communicating a mindset, ideas.
Her circle is both wide and distinguished.
[She was] hands-on, and also honest.
Prada acknowledged her role of sage arbiter, a little chagrined, perhaps, that wisdom comes with age.
RUFFLED AND READYMiu Miu, spring 2024
Prada is, at heart, a family business.
The Prada-Bertelli family dynamic is discussion, debate, dialectics.
Conversations with Prada and her husband and son veered easily into the heavyweight territory of philosophy and philology.
According to Lorenzo, different views produce a better synthesis.
I asked Patrizio Bertelli why his partnership with his wife had been so successful.
I ask myself the same question all the time, he said.
The couple, now both in their 70s, have been careful in planning a smooth succession.
Its going very well, Prada said.
We have the same taste, and most of the time we have exactly the same idea.
Hes a very nice person and intellectually honestthe most important quality.
It clicked in an incredible way, said Simons.
WALKING THE WALKPrada, spring 2024
Prada told me that she is very much aware of her age.
But her creative drive has hardly dimmed.
Maria Bianchi wanted to be different.
When people say, Are you happy about your achievement in fashion?
I really, sincerely, couldnt care less, she said.
I think about what I have to do next.
I am ambitious, I want to be good.
And sometimes I think Iamgooda great exhibition, a good piece of clothingbut only for a second.
She admits that she finds it difficult to be proud of herself.
For me, she said, it was a failure.
I asked her if it was difficult to be a brand.
To do it: no, she said.
Because its basically [about what] we liked.
The concept is very easy.
But then you have to live it, embody it, be responsible for it.
Apparently no one had yet come up with a good concept for the shopwindow displays.
And you are involved in this decision?
I am involved in everything!
I raise the notionsurely something shes heard once or twice beforethat she must be a perfectionist.
Possibly, she conceded.
On that final third of her lifethe part thats about family and funPrada is reticent.
LEANING INThe designer in a rare moment of rest.
I am better at working than talking, she says.
She looks very reserved, said Bertelli, but its a question of privacyshes not shy.
I asked him what made his wife happy.
When she works, she is happy, he said.
When she does beautiful things, she is happy.
When she travels, she is happy.
When she spends time with intelligent people, she is happy.
Now, for sure, that she has a grandchild, Lorenzo said, she is super happy.
Prada smiled broadly when I asked her about her granddaughter.
I have to learn everything, she said, because I dont know the education points today.
I have the responsibility of educating the girl, she said.
The March issue is here featuring Miuccia Prada.
