Miuccia Prada and Francesco Vezzoli. Miuccia Prada Miuccia Bianchi Prada (; born Maria Bianchi ; 10 May 1949) is an Italian billionaire fashion designer and businesswoman. She is the head designer of Prada and the founder of its subsidiary Miu Miu. The youngest granddaughter of Mario Prada, she took over the family-owned luxury goods manufacturer in 1978. Since then, the company has acquired Jil Sander, Helmut Lang and shoemaker Church & Co. In 2002, Prada opened her own contemporary art gallery. In March 2013, she was one of the fifty best-dressed over 50 by the "Guardian." In 2014 she was listed as
Prada business, so it was his daughter Luisa Prada who took the helm of Prada as his successor, and ran it for almost twenty years. Her own daughter, Miuccia Prada, joined the company in 1970, eventually taking over for her mother in 1978. Miuccia began making waterproof backpacks out of "Pocone", a nylon fabric. She met Patrizio Bertelli in 1977, an Italian who had begun his own leather goods business at the age of 24, and he joined the company soon after. He advised Miuccia on company business, which she followed. It was his advice to discontinue importing English goods and