miuccia prada

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Miuccia Prada

Prada (b.1949) is another acclaimed haute couture designer from Italy. She was the heiress of her mother's corporation and since 1978 she (after acquiring the PhD in Political Science, along with her spouse Patricio Bertelli) begun to manage the Prada SpA company, originally aimed at producing the luggage items.

Prada was for a long time well-known for her interest in art, which she supported also finacially. Not long past, she set up an “art-gallery style“ or “moving“ exhibition of her collection of skirts under the name "Waist Down".

Originally, she was not taken into account in the matter of inheriting the family company for besides being a mime student at Teatro Piccolo( Milan), she was also a member of the Communist party and a defender of women's rights during the 1970s. However, she managed to present the other side of her personality – her talent for design. In the mid 1980s, she created a completely original collection of unmarked, hard-wearing, but precisely elaborated handbags made from nylon in the black color. These bags were an immediate success and soon became the neccessity for the fashion enthusiasts, like Marie Helvin or Jerry Hall.

The retail prices were set up at approximately 250 USD. From this time on, the faking of Prada items begun to flourish(which, in fact, resulted in the raising value of the originals). But what was more relevant was the fact that Prada handbags were recognised as accessories of choice intended for the world's high-class models and editors.

Their autumn/winter clothing collection of 1989 was exposed to a lot of criticism.The almost rigorous, oversimplified patterns of Prada's items stood in a great opposition to the more “pleasure-seeking“ designs of the then trade marks. The negative criticism went so far as to interpret her clothing collections as "uniforms for the slightly disenfranchised".

For the first time, she offically presentented her own brand in 1992, when she released the collection titled Miu Miu(in fact, it was Miuccia's nickname)at a very reasonable price. She drew inspiration from her private outfit , consisting largely from a rather “unrefined and natural“ hippie-like pieces. Because of her flawless and perfectly elaborated clothing collections made from first-class fabrics, Prada was in 1993 honoured the Council of Fashion Designers of America International Award. Nowadays, in Milan she directs fashion shows for Miu Miu and Prada.

Almost simultaneously, Miuccia tokk the management of the family firm and then she met her husband and later business partner as well - Patrizio Bertelli. She said about it that if she had not met him, she would not certainly have been capable of doing what she had done. Under Bertelli's management the company grew up as to become an international sway that the design house started making moves towards becoming an international conglomeration to opponent LVMH during the season of 1999-2000, by means of incorporating such trade names like Azzedine Alaia, Jil Sander, Fendi and Helmut Lang.