Second Pradasphere in Shanghai Will Trace 110 Years of Prada Brand

Luisa Zargani
·2 min read
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MILAN — More than a century has passed since Mario Prada, Miuccia Prada’s grandfather, opened his first shop in Milan’s Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in 1913, and the company is setting out to trace the rich history of the brand by staging its second Pradasphere event.

The exhibition will run in Shanghai starting Dec. 7 until Jan. 21 with a selection of stories curated by co-creative directors Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons.

More than 500 artifacts, both physical and digital, will be on display, drawn from the fashion archive as well as from Prada’s activities, showcasing its impact on the luxury industry and in the fields of art, architecture, culture and sport.

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Details on the location have not been revealed yet, so it is not known whether Pradasphere II, which will be free and open to the public, could be held at the Rong Zhai mansion in Shanghai, which Prada restored and unveiled in 2017 as a multipurpose brand and cultural space.

No other event marked Prada’s 110th anniversary this year.

The first Pradasphere took place in 2014 at Harrods, where Prada even created a version of Marchesi, the 19th century Milanese pasticceria, or pastry shop, it purchased earlier that year, on the store’s  fourth floor terrace. At the time, it spotlighted heritage items from the Prada archives, and a “history wall” underlining the brand’s involvement with the Fondazione Prada and the America’s Cup.

There was also screening room with short films by directors such as Wes Anderson, Roman Polanski and Ridley Scott and a display of the brand’s architectural projects by Rem Koolhaas/OMA and Herzog & de Meuron.

The project set out to examine the inspirations, thought processes and recurring themes in the work of Miuccia Prada, who was the sole creative director of the Prada brand until Raf Simons’ arrival in 2020.

Following Harrods, the exhibition traveled to Hong Kong in November that year.

A custom-made structure was built on the rooftop of the city’s Central Ferry Pier 4, displaying more than 60 outfits from the Prada collections, along with special accessories, archival never-before-seen objects, a wide selection of images, videos, books, as well as architectural projects developed with OMA and short films for the brand directed by Polanski, Anderson, Scott and Yang Fudong.

Pradasphere II will also be itinerant.

As part of the Prada Group’s managerial reorganization kicked off earlier this year, Gianfranco D’Attis was named chief executive officer of the Prada brand in January. He was previously president of Christian Dior Couture Americas. Andrea Guerra took on the role of CEO of the group, and Patrizio Bertelli that of chairman.

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