Prada Group: History, Brands, Versace Deal and Figures

Prada S.p.A., known as the Prada Group, is an Italian luxury company based in Milan that owns Prada, Miu Miu, Versace, Church’s, Car Shoe, Pasticceria Marchesi and Luna Rossa. It designs, makes and sells ready-to-wear, leather goods and footwear in more than 70 countries.

The group is in focus after it completed the purchase of Versace on 2 December 2025. In the same year it reported net revenues of 5.718 billion euros, up 9 percent at constant exchange rates, and its twentieth consecutive quarter of growth.

Prada Group: the Milan luxury house behind Prada, Miu Miu and Versace — The Prada boutique in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan. Photo: Per Andersson (Nrkpan), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Overview and Founding

The Prada story began in 1913, when the first store opened in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, the covered arcade in central Milan.

According to the group’s official history, a new business model took shape in 1977, when the creative work of Miuccia Prada was joined with the entrepreneurial drive of Patrizio Bertelli. The aim was to develop the brand internationally.

The group became a listed company in 2011, when Prada S.p.A. was the first Italian company to list its shares on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, under the stock code 1913.

Key Milestones

1913: The first Prada store opens in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan.
1993: Prada launches its first menswear collection, Miu Miu is created and Fondazione Prada is set up.
1997: The Prada Challenge team is formed for the 2000 America’s Cup, and the Linea Rossa sportswear line makes its debut.
1999: The group buys Church’s, the handmade footwear brand, followed two years later by Car Shoe.
2001: The first Prada Epicenter opens in New York, designed by Rem Koolhaas.
2003: Licensing deals are signed with Luxottica for eyewear and with Puig for fragrances.
2011: Prada S.p.A. lists on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
2020: Raf Simons joins Miuccia Prada as co-creative director of the Prada brand.
2025: The group completes its acquisition of Versace from Capri Holdings.

What It Does

The group designs, manufactures and distributes ready-to-wear collections, leather goods and footwear through its own stores, e-commerce, selected online retailers and department stores. Eyewear and beauty products are made under licence.

Production rests on 25 factories that the group owns, and the company calls its manufacturing platform a key strength. It bought the Milan bakery Pasticceria Marchesi, founded in 1824, in 2014.

Its stores include the Epicenter format, with sites in New York from 2001, Tokyo from 2003, designed by Herzog and de Meuron, and Los Angeles from 2004. Beyond fashion, Prada presented a partnership with Axiom Space in 2024 to work on spacesuits for NASA’s Artemis III lunar mission, and it has run an ocean education program with UNESCO since 2019.

Prada and Miu Miu are its two main fashion labels. In 2025 Miu Miu retail sales rose 35 percent at constant exchange rates, after 93 percent in 2024, while Prada brand retail sales were 1 percent lower but returned to growth in the fourth quarter.

The Versace purchase was agreed on 10 April 2025 on an enterprise value of 1.25 billion euros. Versace reported net revenues of 684 million euros in 2025 and contributed 65 million euros to the group after it joined in December.

By region, Asia Pacific was the largest market for retail sales in 2025 at 1.699 billion euros, followed by Europe at 1.563 billion euros. Retail sales in the Middle East rose 15 percent to 251 million euros, a region where demand for luxury has been growing, as our report on Saudi Arabia as a new luxury retail destination describes.

The group competes in global luxury with larger groups such as LVMH, the company built by Bernard Arnault.