Miuccia Prada: ‘Ugly fashion’

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2:03Welcome to Good, Bad, Billionaire from the BBC World Service. Each episode we pick a billionaire and find out how they made their money, from zero to their first million and then from a million to the billions. Then we judge them. Are they good, bad or just another billionaire? I'm Zing Zing, a journalist and an author. And I'm Simon Jack, the BBC's business editor. And on this episode we have the first lady of fashion herself. The devil wears it. It's Mewcha Prada. So let's break down Mewcha Prada by numbers. She's actually 75 years old, so she's been going in this industry for a very long time.

2:38And she's worth a cool 6.2 billion US dollars. That was news to me, and that puts her comfortably in the top 500 richest people in the world right now. She turned her grandfather's shop into a fashion beast called the Prada Group. And that includes tons of other brands, 26 factories and nearly 15 ,000 employees. So personal story, I actually did an event for Prada once for one of their brands, Miu Miu. And the insider gossip that I can tell you is that everyone within the company calls her Madame Prada. Well, this is going to be your episode, I reckon, because I know less about fashion than anyone in the world.

3:17and you are, I think, comfortably one of the best-dressed podcaster journalists in Britain. I can think of a few people who can vie for that crown but this is as much a business story and a money story as it is a fashion story because not a lot of people in fashion make this money. No, but it's one of the biggest industries in the world. It's thought to be worth about$1.8 trillion. It's hugely important for the European economy and Italy is right at the heart of the industry. So Muccia has run the heart of the empire from Milan for over four decades, along with her husband. And they really do make quite the pairs, we'll find out.

3:53Yes. When they met, she thought he was making cheap knockoffs of some of her designs. He is also known for his very fiery temper. He has smashed store windows before. And when I think of Prada, I think of minimalist. I suppose that's what she celebrated for, the minimalist design of her clothes. Yeah, it's been called intellectual design. You know, unlike these other Italian designers, you know, like Dolce and Gabbana, like Gucci, Prada as a fashion label doesn't do sexy, racy designs. They do kind of the thinking woman style, I want to say. And she's not a lover of jeans. When asked once if she's ever owned jeans, she replied, one pair once in the 80s.

4:34And this will come as no surprise to those of you who like Prada. She's been called the master of ugly. What does that mean? Basically, I think it communicates this idea that the stuff that she designs isn't appealing to the male gaze. You know, it's very much a woman's woman's take on fashion. Yeah. Well, she also has an eye for art. She owns over 900 works by artists, including Jeff Koons, he of the big bubble dog, Damien Hirst, he of the shark and Anish Kapoor. I mean, that art collection has got to be worth a fortune on its own. Oh, yeah. I mean, she also must have the space to store them all because Anish Kapoor's artwork is very large.

5:09It's massive. She even apparently has a tube slide designed by an artist called Karsten Huller from her office down to the courtyard below. So, you know, she's got a sense of fun. Yeah, not the first slide one of our billionaires have had. Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, in the chief exec's office, there was a slide out the back door. So must have accessory for a billionaire. I don't think, on the other hand, Sergey Brin ever became a mime artist. So she must be one of the first billionaires, actually maybe the only billionaire we'll ever cover, who at one point wanted to be in mime. So Mucha Prada, lover of art, mime and ugly fashion.

5:45But is she good, bad or just another billionaire? Let's go back to the beginning to find out.

5:53So we start with Mucha from zero to her first million. She wasn't actually born Mucha Prada, which I was surprised by. I assumed that was her name. But no, her real name is Maria Bianchi. She was born in 1949 in Milan, Italy. And the name Mutra Prada will actually come decades later into her life. Yeah, I wonder how many other billionaires have started life under a different name. We'll have to have a think about that. She was born, though, to a wealthy family. That'll be important when we come to score her later on. She grew up in a four-storey 19th century apartment building where she still lives today.

6:25Her father, Luigi Bianchi, headed a company that manufactured putting green mowers. so not very glamorous. No, and her mother, Luisa, was an heiress to a leather goods company known as Fratelli Prada, the Prada Brothers. So the store had been established in 1913 by Mucci's grandfather, Mario, and his brother. So it sold travel items, leather goods, glassware, all made in Italy. And it was a big deal during the 1920s and 30s, and even at one point became the supplier to the royal family of Italy. However, Mario Prada had some old-fashioned ideas. He didn't believe women should have a role in business.

7:00So he prevented female family members from entering his company. Very old school, very sexist. But in 1958, he passed away and his son actually didn't care about the company. So Mutra's mother, Luisa, took over the store. We need to sort of place Milan here in the fashion world, because post-war, it becomes quite a design hub of Italian industry. Right. So people over the world began to source and collect Italian design. You know, everything from those iconic scooters, sports cars, clothing, accessories, you know, there's a reason Milan design even today draws thousands of people from all over the world.

7:38Yeah, so I think of the 60s, like early 60s, as being kind of Sophia Loren in a headscarf driving a convertible Ferrari with everyone going, chow, and meep, meep, meep on their little vespers as well. The height of chic. But having said that, even though, you know, people like Sophia Loren were pushing Italy's reputation as the country of chic elegance abroad, women in Italy were actually not getting very far in society. So it wasn't accepted that this married bourgeois woman like Luisa could actually run a shop. So actually, they had to get two businessmen to run it for her. Yeah, in fact, later in life when Muccia was asked if she helped out in the shop, she was shocked and said she only visited twice as a child, explaining it was not a woman's place.

8:21Muccia rarely actually gives details about her childhood, but she kind of sums it up once as serious. It was a serious Catholic family. My mother liked clothes, but she liked correctness more. Yeah, and in this environment, Muccia herself was bright. She was politically active. And this was a period of great political change. Mucha ended up at the University of Milan studying political science. And she said, I really believed we could transform the world. Yeah, because this is around that time of the summer of love, isn't it? In 1968, Milan students were protesting in solidarity with the sort of epicentre of it in Paris, railing against consumerism, ha ha ha, and championing Marxist ideas.

9:00And this is where Mucha's life story is really interesting, right? Because, you know, how does a woman like this end up in fashion of all things? because she actually becomes a member of the Union of Italian Women, which is a feminist offshoot of the Italian Communist Party. Yeah, well, looking back on that time, she says, my big dreams were of justice, equality and moral regeneration. I was a communist, but being left-wing was fashionable then. I was no different from thousands of middle-class kids. I think that's the hypocrisy of youth, isn't it? I know, it's a luxury you can only have when you're in your 20s.

9:34Exactly. She was different, though, from other students. They wore jeans to protest. She wore Yves Saint Laurent dresses and high heels. And she said, I hated the bourgeois people who felt they had to dress in jeans when you knew they didn't want to. I would love to see Mucha Prada on the front lines of the Paris 68 riots. Right, wearing Yves Saint Laurent high heels. She's bright, though. She went on to get a PhD in political science and then made a very surprising career move, which you hinted at a minute ago. Right. So she spent five years at the Piccolo Teatro training to become a mime artist.

10:06So at this point, Mucha Prada is a communist mime artist. I mean, really, it's almost like the set up to a joke, right? Yeah, exactly. So the silence of mime apparently was a huge boon for a shy woman like Mucha. She said, I got very serious and I was a really good mime, especially when it was abstract. It's fun controlling your body. But her parents stepped in, forbade her from continuing her mime career and demanded that she join the family business. So at 23, she puts aside her dreams of becoming Italy's greatest mime. But reluctantly, you know, she feels as a feminist that a career in fashion is actually demeaning.

10:45She said, I had to have a lot of courage to do fashion because in theory it was the least feminist work possible. Of course, I liked it a lot, but I also wanted to do something more useful. Interesting that fashion feminism, the interface between those two things. And Muccia Prada, also bear in mind, she's a trained mime artist, but she isn't actually very well qualified for the job of designing accessories, which is in her family's line of work. She famously herself said that she can't draw. Yeah. Then in the late 1970s, her mother retired and Muccia took over the shop as well as designing the accessories.

11:15And at this point, it was still just one shop. The company's glory days from the 20s and 30s were seemingly long behind it. And annual sales were just$45 ,000. That's not a lot. So, you know, she is a long way off becoming a millionaire. But in the year she took over her shop, at a trade fair, she meets someone who would change the course of her life and her business. Like many of our billionaires, there's always a key person there. This was a man called Patrizio Bertelli, a loudmouth Tuscan entrepreneur with big dreams who ran a leather factory in Italy. Yeah, and he was making, in her opinion, cheap knockoffs of her bags.

11:52She found him argumentative, arrogant, and of course they instantly hit it off. I mean, opposites attract, as the old saying goes. So they begin both a romantic and a business relationship. That feels like a tempestuous one. It's been described as volcanic. They had huge arguments, so violent that employees say they had to dodge things when they threw stuff at each other. Patrizio also has a renowned temper. Mutra has said, I always tell him you like this reputation or you change it. And he told her to have bigger ambitions and take more risks. He also became the main supplier to Prada. So together they started making changes to revive the dying brand.

12:32Patrizia convinced her to add shoes to their line and open a second shop in Milan. She actually also disliked the bags they already stocked. So she's described them as old and bourgeois and boring. so she found this factory making a fabric called Pocono which is a kind of material they use for parachutes it's kind of silky and strong nylon and she released this nylon bag in 1984 which was a little backpack Yeah, but 1984 was perhaps too soon that it didn't fit with that decade's thirst for traditional luxury but as I say it's not the last we'll hear of these bags No, these bags are going to get very, very famous Meanwhile, Patrizio had been getting their more traditional luxury goods out there to meet that kind of need.

13:14So Prada leather bags and gloves were stocked in US department stores, you know, upmarket ones. And in 1985, Meechua released what's now known as the classic Prada handbag. You know, it's sturdy, it's functional, it's sleek, but it has quality craftsmanship at the heart. So it became an instant hit. Somebody please explain to me the handbag thing. I don't get it. People will spend£10 ,000,£20 ,000. You've got the Birkin bag, you've got Gucci bags. It just seems to be the epicentre of a kind of, I don't understand the mindset around it. Can you help me? It is funny. I think handbags are different from clothes and shoes in that you could conceivably bring a handbag around with you everywhere.

13:55You know, you don't have to change it as often as you change your clothes. You probably don't need to wash it. So it's probably quite long wearing. So in a way, you can rationalise it to yourself as being the most sensible purchase you can make. I suppose for men, a posh watch might be the kind of equivalent, you know, like a Rolex or a Patek Philippe or something, a quiet sign of quality, which you carry everywhere with you. Exactly. And, you know, if you're meeting people in a business setting, you shake their hands, they see your watch. You meet someone in a business setting. If you're a woman, you put your handbag down, they see the handbag.

14:27It's kind of the same thing. Got it. Thanks for that little primer. So Patricio has a head for business while Mewcha has an eye for designing the new thing that people wanted, basically. And an art historian called Germano Calent described it as, she is all intellect and ideas, he brings it all down to earth, they fight like animals but they are the perfect complement to each other. Opposites really do attract. Yeah, and in 1987 they get married after eight years of living together but she doesn't take his name. Instead, she convinces her unwed aunt to adopt her so she can officially have the Prada family name to match the business that she runs.

15:02and her nickname was Mucha, so she becomes Mucha Prada. There we go. And in 1988, she finally turns her hand to designing clothes. So she's actually been quite reluctant to do this because she sees designing clothes as frivolous, but Patrizio, in his usual manner, threatened to hire somebody else if she didn't step up and do it. Yeah, so her debut women's wear collection, kind of based on Mucha's own minimalist wardrobe, and it ran counter to the 1980s ideas of excess being synonymous with luxury. 1980s, you probably weren't around. Barely, barely. Sadly, sadly. A glint in my parents' eye. But it was all kind of big hair, shoulder pads.

15:46If you've ever seen those old TV shows like Dynasty or Dynasty and Dallas, that was the kind of vibe. It was very, very flashy. So understandably, given the context, critics really liked it, but it was still very much under the radar. But Patrizio did a deal with some of the US boutiques. If they wanted to stock the popular accessories, they also had to stock the new line of clothes. If you want the accessories which are popular, you've got to take the clothes too. And this is really clever, right? Because it introduces the clothes to the American market, but it also literally physically takes up space.

16:16So it stops the shop from stocking other designers. So you're basically taking up the retail space from someone else. And this clothing line, the introduction of this, gives her another chance to have a crack at selling these nylon bags. And suddenly fashion editors seem to love them. She built on the buzz. She sent the backpacks out to key editors as Christmas presents. It's very interesting how the fashion world works. Magazine editors are literally your rainmakers, aren't they? They really are. And you would not believe the amount of stuff that they get sent. I had a previous life as a fashion journalist for different magazines.

16:49When I remember when I first started, I did not understand how you would have a fashion editor to come in and they would be carrying a£5 ,000 bag. And then someone explained to me that they just get gifted this stuff all the time. Well, it worked because by 1990, the Prada backpack was the must-have item and they were making plenty of money from it. The backpack retailed at just under$500 and that was a lot back then. It would be over$1 ,000 in today's money. There's a fashion journalist called Dana Thomas who describes the backpack as the emblem of the radical change that luxury was undergoing at the time.

17:23The shift from small family businesses of beautifully handcrafted goods to global corporations selling to the middle market. Yeah, that's interesting that it becomes, rather than little boutiques selling bespoke goods in small quantities, you've got this globalisation of fashion really starts taking off. But the bag proved such a hit. Prada's rivals got in on the action. Fendi, for example, Gucci, Armani, they all released their own versions of luxury backpacks. So it's hard to pinpoint exactly at which point Mucha became a millionaire. So we know she was born into wealth, but, you know, the business was struggling when she took it on.

17:58It was also a completely private company at that time. So the profits from Prada stayed within the family. They went to Mucha and Patrizio and her two siblings. But because of the popularity of this Prada nylon backpack in 1990, sales for Prada were 50 million US dollars. So we can probably say that at this point, 1990, at the age of 41, Mucha is officially a millionaire. And she also has two sons under the age of two. So she's got her hands full. But how does Mucha Prada go from a million to a billion? Because, as I said before, a lot of people in fashion never get anywhere close to a billion.

18:35Fashion is a very expensive industry. And billion is a big number, as we've said before. So next we'll look at how Mucha Prada goes from a million to a billion.

18:46Well, it all has to do with the changing times. In the 90s, the industry was undergoing basically a revolution. Yeah, well, they were going away from conspicuous wealth and that glitzy, brash look of the 80s towards Mutia's signature style, which was minimalist. And Prada really captured this zeitgeist. So if you talk to people in the fashion industry, one of the things that comes up about Prada's designs is this term called ugly chic. You know, you have knee-length skirts, You have quite masculine cuts of tailoring, you know, elements of school uniform, business attire. A British stylist called Katie Grant once said that she saw Mucha Prada standing in the studio in her words, this very prim, calf length, pleated white dress.

19:28And you could see straight through to her electric pink underwear. That mixture of being sober and conservative and something quite shocking is totally Prada and totally her. You know, if you were a guy and you saw someone wearing that on a tube, you'd think to yourself, that woman's mad. She's gotten dressed without looking at herself in the mirror. But for a woman seeing it, you're like, yes, you go, queen. You know, for Mucha, I think this is kind of her feminist response to being in the fashion industry at a time when everyone is saying that sex sells. You know, this industry, even though fashion is still selling to women, women's wear is actually still mainly designed by men.

20:01Yeah. And she said, to your point exactly, I want to escape the convention of what is sexually appealing to work with an idea that you can be sexy without being obvious. Beyond this insular world of fashion, one thing that also kind of uplifted Prada's fortunes was the power of celebrity, because celebrities were the ones who brought fashion and brands like Prada to public attention. Yeah, and it was Uma Thurman at the 1995 Oscars who was nominated that year for Best Supporting Actress in Pulp Fiction. She wore a lilac Prada dress. Now, she didn't win, but the dress made the front pages the next day.

20:35And it was a very simple kind of U-neck sleeveless lavender gown. It's very chic, very minimalist. It's not very sexy, actually. Isn't it? OK, I'll take your word for that. I've got no comment on the matter. And so Muccia and Fabrizio capitalised on this momentum and the Prada brand began to explode through the 1990s. They launched a new label for a younger, more experimental woman called Miu Miu. I've heard of that one. Yep, it was a childhood nickname, so Muccia, Miu Miu. They also launched Prada menswear, then Prada Sport, which is a kind of luxury sportswear line priced about 50 % lower than the main collection.

21:11And Prada wasn't the only or even the first luxury label to launch a sports line, but they were first to embrace what is now known as athleisure. Designer tracksuits, waterproofs, rather than those preppy polo and cricket jumpers that were popular in the sort of waspy clubs of New England and New York. So they were opening stores globally, although when Patrizio was overseeing a new store, something he always got personally involved in, he actually ended up smashing its windows with a hammer because he didn't like the way it was decorated. So still that odd couple. Explosive temper. Didn't slow things down though.

21:44Prada now had almost 100 stores worldwide. And this meant by 1998, Prada sales were estimated to be$850 million. If you remember back in 1990, they were 50 million. That's a 17-fold increase in just eight years, a really fast growth. But the couple didn't sit back to enjoy their success. So Patrizio wanted to expand the Prada empire. Yeah, he wanted to build a luxury multi-brand giant that could rival the likes of LVMH, owned by Bernard Arnault, one of our billionaires. You can check out that story in our archive. And of course, what was going on at Gucci as well. So his first big move was to buy a 9.5 % stake in Gucci for$260 million.

22:26Most of this money was actually borrowed, although there's a Forbes article from that time which describes its source as something of a mystery. Yeah, and Gucci was struggling at this time. It was at risk of being taken over by Bernard Arno at LVMH. So Patrizio was a lifeline to Gucci, but his purchase confused people. Prada couldn't afford to completely take over Gucci and it was a direct rival. So it was a strange transaction in many ways. But then Patrizio sells his stake in Gucci to its rival Bernard Arnault at LVMH. Can we talk about the business sense of this? Because that seems like a crazy move to me.