Prada buys Versace: What is behind the unusual fashion deal?

When the rumor came up a few months ago that the Italian fashion label Prada could buy Versace, even experienced industry experts shook their heads. Fine spirit fashion meets sex bomb chic? The fact that Versace could soon be part of the Prada portfolio with its golden Medusa heads and the super-sharp clothes seemed too absurd. “Prasace”-it sounded like a weird but funny-curling fashion.

But if the trumpist time in which we have recently lived again has taught us one thing, then the realization that the impossible is always possible.

And so the news of the Versace takeover by Prada bursts in the middle of a week that is characterized by international customs chaos. A situation that no one could have imagined in his wildest nightmares. So why am still wondering about an unusual fashion fusion?

Prada is said to have paid 1.25 billion euros to the US group Capri, which Versace has belonged to since 2018. The Italian label returns to its homeland. “We share the same strong commitment to creativity, craft and heritage,” said Prada boss Patrizio Bertelli in a press release. His group, which also includes Miu Miu, Marchesi and Church’s, is now supplemented by another famous label. Industry experts also see a strong signal for products “Made in Italy” in the merger.

For the Prada Group, which, despite the economically bad times, recently achieved record results, it is the opportunity to finally compete again with large French corporations such as LVMH and Kering. An impulse that the company was already doing at the end of the 1990s. At that time it bought Helmut Lang and Jil Sander, two brands that had a supposedly similar intellectual claim. But the desired success failed to materialize. Above all, the conflicting cooperation with the German designer Jil Sander kept making headlines. Already after the first retreat from Sander from the company it became clear: in addition to Miuccia Prada, there is little space for another Alpha designer.

The cooperation between her and Donatella Versace will now be kept all the more precisely. One avoids the spotlight, the other is the epitome of Protz, Wealth and Dolce Vita. A brand image that once conquered Gianni Versace and that his sister continued to maintain over 30 years after his death. Donatella recently resigned from her post as a creative director, but she will continue to represent the brand to the outside world.

But maybe the opposite of both brands is the guarantee of success. At least Donatella Versace recently announced that she was “Delighted”, so almost delighted that the label she has led over so many years was now again in the hands of an Italian fashion company. After all, sales recently decreased sharply. The sale to Prada could be the chance to rekindle the hype around Versace. Will there be Prada mode with Medusa heads soon? After cooperations such as Balenciaga and Gucci, it would not be the first weird cooperation between two brands.