Mrs.Prada

Almost everyone refers to Miuccia Prada in the most formal of ways, but she herself has never been one to stand on ceremony. WENDELL STEAVENSON meets a designer who has built an empire in her own image: iconic, iconoclastic and  enormously influential.

IT WAS NOVEMBER and a little windy on the balcony of the Ca' Corner della Regina, the 18th-century palazzo that is home to the Prada Foundation in Venice, where Miuccia Prada was posing for photographs against the backdrop of the Grand Canal. She clasped a red silk coat (from her very first collection in 1988) over a citrine sweater, bright and sharp against the grey sky. She wore no discernible makeup; her long blond and auburn hair was unstyled and hung in soft curls at her shoulders.

Prada, now 74, reminded me of the late Queen of England: a diminutive older lady, magnificently costumed, who commands a regal presence with a softly-spoken manner and a genuine curiosity about both things and people.

"Fashion is one-third of my life," said Prada, who has created two celebrated fashion labels, Prada and Miu Miu, and, together with her husband, Patrizio Bertelli, helms the Prada Group, a global luxury brand with $4.5 billion in annual revenue (as of 2022) and over 13,000 employees. 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 try to make my life useful." Prada likes the word useful; she dislikes the word luxury, which she finds vulgar. And here is the dichotomy that runs through her life and her work: Miuccia Prada is an extraordinarily successful fashion designer selling beautiful, expensive clothes and accessories. She is also a former member of the Italian Communist Party with a doctorate in political science-who marched for women's rights. "I always thought there were only two noble professions: politicians or doctors," she told me.