Fashion designer: pioneer of ugly chic – Miuccia Prada turns 75

Their fashion should first and foremost be useful. And it should appeal to everyone: from children to adults. The Italian fashion designer Miuccia Prada herself wants to decide every morning whether she is a 15-year-old girl or an old lady who is close to death. With this credo, she turned the Prada brand into a cult fashion label. But that wasn’t enough, the Italian also brought up a fashion giant: Miu Miu. Her clothes and accessories have shaped the fashion world for decades. Today Miuccia Prada turns 75 years old.

It all started with a handbag made of black military nylon. Her first design work for the family business, which she unexpectedly took over from her mother at the age of 28, immediately turned out to be a brilliant idea. Practical, light, waterproof – and above all useful. To this day, Prada’s nylon handbag remains a cult object. Miuccia Prada subsequently turned the fashion house into a globally successful brand with revolutionary designs, simple understatement and practical materials.

In addition to the classic dresses and cuts that were produced at Prada under her aegis, the Italian was one of the first major fashion designers to coin the so-called Ugly Chic (loosely translated: ugly elegance). Some people think it’s terrible, but today it was and still is all the rage among fashion fans.

Ugly chic as a provocation

Miuccia Prada showed ugly chic for the first time in a collection in 1996. Back then, she wanted to provoke and put the inappropriate in the spotlight: bright green clashed with dusty brown, thick cable knits with sheer transparent fabrics, retro with futuristic, plastic with crystal and socks with high heels -Sandals. She played with the ugly and the beautiful, with the taboo and the norm – and celebrated a huge success with it.

The collection was intended to break with traditions. Prada set trends – and never followed them. “Somehow what is called bad taste was never accepted in fashion. Back then it was a kind of scandal, an insult. Even today, fashion is sometimes the place of clichéd beauty, but it is the cliché of beauty that is complete removed – yes, needs to be changed,” Prada recently told the fashion magazine “Vogue”.

The woman in the center

In contrast to her competitors, she defied the image of the flawless and dull. Prada’s fashion always put women at the center. “The idea of ​​a woman as a beautiful silhouette – no! I try to respect women. I don’t tend to design dresses that are super-sexy. I try to be creative in a way to create dresses “that can be worn, that are useful,” she told Vogue.

Today the Prada Group, which includes not only Prada but also the Miu Miu label, which has existed since 1993, is a successful player in the fashion world. Group sales last year amounted to almost 4.73 billion euros. Prada’s husband Patrizio Bertelli runs the company. Prada has long been marketing perfumes, jewelry and sunglasses.

She was actually born with a career as a successful fashion designer, but as a young woman she vehemently resisted working in the family business. In 1913, her grandfather Mario and his brother Martino founded a company for high-quality leather goods. The name back then: Fratelli Prada, the Prada brothers. Later her mother Luisa took over. Miuccia Prada, born Maria Bianchi on May 10, 1949, initially studied political science and received her doctorate. She then trained as a mime.

Designer clothes at communist demonstrations

For a time she was a member of the Italian Communist Party. Even back then she wanted to be different. At the demonstrations and sit-ins, she did not show up in jeans like her comrades, but instead wore clothes by the French designer Yves Saint Laurent.

At the age of 28, she and her two siblings took over the company from her mother. She took their birth name and called herself Miuccia – her childhood nickname. Her husband, with whom she has two sons, encouraged her to pursue a career as a designer. According to her own statements, she had never held a pen in her hand before. She never learned to draw or tailor, but always designed her fashion “with words”.

With her husband, she expanded the company into an empire worth millions. From the venerable family business, which was founded in 1919 by the then King Vittorio Emanuele III. was appointed purveyor to the royal court, they turned into a modern fashion company. In 1993, Prada achieved another coup with her second label, Miu Miu.

Break in style as an element

As one of the few women in the male-dominated Italian fashion world, Miuccia Prada stood out with her creations. Besides her, there is only Donatella Versace, who is enjoying great success in the industry. Many explain this with the diversity in their works. Even today, Miuccia Prada still values ​​breaking styles. In new collections she once again focused on contrasts and broke female clichés with masculine elements and fabrics.

But Prada doesn’t want to measure itself by past successes. “When people ask, ‘Are you happy about your success in fashion?’ I don’t care at all,” she told Vogue. “I’m thinking about what I do next.” She is always driven by the idea that the people who wear her clothes feel self-confident. “Fashion is a representation of your own vision of the world. Otherwise, in my opinion, fashion is useless.”