At a time when most companies are desperately trying to squash their counterfeiters, Prada is taking a slightly, um, unconventional approach, according to WWD.
While doing an interview yesterday on Bloomberg Television, Prada‘s CEO (and Miuccia’s husband) Patrizio Bertelli said “Fake goods aren’t totally bad, at least it created jobs at some counterfeit factories. We don’t want to be a brand that nobody wants to copy.”
So, you’ve probably heard that Prada, the Italian luxury goods company owned and operated by designer Miuccia Prada and her husband, CEO Patrizio Bertelli, finally went public last week and will officially begin trading shares on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange this Friday, June 24.
This is a huge deal, not only because there are very few public luxury goods companies (LVMH, PPR, Richemont, Burberry, and Hermes are the big ones), but because Prada chose the Hong Kong Stock Exchange to stage its IPO. We talked to some of our favorite fashion-meets-finance professionals about the significance of this event.
According to WWD, there was a rumor going around that Patrizio Bertelli, Prada’s CEO, wasn’t so keen on Miuccia Prada’s bananas spring collection. Sources told the newspaper that Prada had canceled appointments in Milan with American retailers because they planned to bring an “enhanced offering” of the collection to New York in a month.
Prada’s spring collection was plenty enhanced as it was for our tastes. Most other critics seemed to agree that the collection was a smashing success. And now Prada is “firmly” denying the rumors that Bertelli didn’t like it, or that the collection was being altered for NYC appointments.
Denial aside, it’s curious that the rumor ever even existed. Does this mean that despite the influx of neon that followed Prada’s showing, there is some concern that American’s won’t warm to it? Would you wear Prada’s SS2011 collection?
Miuccia Prada: “It’s not that I don’t want to embrace the Internet, but I don’t want to just throw random answers out there. In that case, I’d rather not answer.” Patrizio Bertelli: “You don’t get it, do you? Communications move fast and fast communication compromises quality. It’s inevitable, and you have to accept that.” -Prada Read more →
