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<\/div>\nNo need to ask what would be on the Versace side of said coin \u2013 that\u2019ll be the signature Medusa head. Indeed, what we should be talking about when it comes to this most full-throttle of brands is not a mere coin but a medallion, another of its house codes. Donatella, who headed up the label after her brother Gianni\u2019s death in 1997 until March of this year, and who is rumoured to be re-engaging now that Prada is in charge, is the personification of its more is more aesthetic.<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s Miuccia Prada, or Mrs Prada, as she is known in the business. Mrs Prada couldn\u2019t, as that rather formal nomenclature suggests, be more different. A personal style reference point for me, as for so many others, she channels a look that I would characterise as edgy but chic librarian.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If that sounds like a contradiction in terms, well, that\u2019s because this is what Mrs Prada \u2013\u00a0and her brand \u2013\u00a0is so brilliant at, and what makes everything she does (and wears) feel so contemporary. There\u2019s even an Instagram account called @miucciafinale<\/a> which details what she wears at her catwalk shows.\u00a0<\/p>\n When I interviewed her once she was sporting a button up shirt, vintage diamond and aquamarine chandelier earrings and a brilliantly weird wooden-beaded pencil skirt that presented like one of those oldfangled car seat covers. She looked beyond.\u00a0<\/p>\n What an alliance. The two most high-profile women in Italian fashion. Though, to be clear, it\u2019s not that Prada will seek to turn Versace into another version of itself. What would be the business point of that? Indeed, one of the posited theories for the sudden departure of the Versace\u2019s recently appointed creative director Dario Vitale after just one highly praised catwalk collection was that his vision aligned too closely with \u2013\u00a0and thus might potentially have cannibalised \u2013\u00a0what Prada is currently channelling with great commercial success at its sister brand, Miu Miu.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ah yes. And where, incidentally, did Vitale work before Versace? Why, Miu Miu. Might Prada also have been punishing the designer\u2019s lack of loyalty in jumping ship before they commandeered his new one for themselves? If true, this would also be more than a little Italian of them.\u00a0Omert\u00e0<\/em>, and all that.<\/p>\n One of the things I love about visiting Milan<\/a>, which I am lucky enough to do several times a year, is how you see the city\u2019s distinct fashion personae played out on the streets. There isn\u2019t any other place in the world where you can bear witness to such a diversity of on-brand sartorial identities. Take Paris as a comparison. Chanel<\/a> and Dior Woman are different, certainly, but not as different as Prada and Versace Woman. In my home city of London<\/a>, as one more point of reference, we tend to mix up brands to forge something that\u2019s particular to us.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/elitetraveler.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2025\/12\/the-sartorialist-milano-2560x1900.jpg\")
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