Wynn Magazine - Las Vegas
Issue link: http://digital.greengale.com/i/615999
An interior of the new boutique at Wynn. right: A look from Prada's Spring/ Summer 2016 collection. 58 Wynn photography Courtesy of prada If you were forced to nominate one single current designer to represent fashion, someone whose name and style are known by even the most sar- torially challenged, there is really only one candidate: Miuccia Prada. And, if such a poll were restricted to the cognoscenti, it might still come up Prada. Because Mrs. Prada, as those insiders call her, is one of a handful of individuals who command universal respect in the fckle, competitive world of fashion, even though it is a world she was reluctant to join. This factoid is one of a number of startling biographical details in the Prada creation myth—such as: Miuccia Prada is probably the only fashion grandee with a doctorate in political science, and defnitely the only major designer who is a former Italian Communist Party member with fve years of mime training under her ostrich leather belt. It was hardly the ambition of the then-29-year-old arty intellectual feminist from the Milanese counterculture to take over Fratelli Prada, the luxury luggage company her grandfather Mario had founded in 1913. Yet, in 1978, she bit the bullet, taught herself design and, seven years later, launched a range of handbags in military-grade black nylon that became instant cult objects: the frst It bags. Later, she married her business partner Patrizio Bertelli—they are still very much together in both senses—who, in 1988, became the catalyst of fashion's swerve into left feld. It was by appeal- ing to his new wife's famous competitive instincts that Bertelli more or less goaded her into designing clothes, when he threatened to hire a "professional." And thus was born the most recognizable—and fnancially successful—of fashion's mavericks. The empire that Prada inherited began as a single shop in Milan's Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. In a sense, this is still the empire— only opposite that little atelier now stands a second, far grander, Prada. And Prada stores fan out worldwide (70 countries) in more than 600 directly operated retail hubs, turning over some $4.65 billion annually. The very newest of the 600-plus stores is a 7,000-square-foot bemirrored marble and steel ode to the original atelier by Roberto Baciocchi. The latest star opened in October on the Wynn Esplanade: not the frst, nor the second, but the third Prada in Las Vegas. Even in a city that is the luxury shopper's nirvana, that is some heavy Prada coverage. Of course, this boutique Patrizio Bertelli appealed to his wife's competitive instincts when he threatened to hire a "professional" to design the clothes. And the most recognizable of fashion's mavericks was born. WYnn LuxuRY