Fashion

Prada just opened a building that refuses to be called a store, and the store is called Prada Galleria. It is located inside Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, Milan’s famous 19th-century shopping arcade, and the very spot where Fratelli Prada first opened in 1913.

The project states eight floors of retail, hospitality, art, and history. A new underground passage connects two sides of the arcade’s central octagon, linking spaces that used to feel separate. Miuccia Prada oversaw the direction; her idea runs deep—Prada was never meant to be fixed on one identity; it’s a connection with art, architecture, cinema, culture, and sport, and none of these are “influences.”

Prada Donna sits on the brand’s original site. Its underground level has nearly doubled, now holding womenswear, an expanded travel section, and home and beauty offerings, all set among historic murals and archival pieces. Prada Uomo is now linked to Prada Donna by a new tunnel called the Passaggio Segreto. It doubles as a small exhibition of Prada’s lesser-known history—quiet facts that shaped the house today.

Above Uomo there is Marchesi 1824, Milan’s beloved pastry shop; it’s a pause point to sit, eat, and feel local. One floor up is Pradasphere, the brand’s first permanent exhibition; it traces over a century of history from 1913 to today, with many archival pieces on view for the first time.

The second floor holds the Studio: intimate, salon-style rooms for personalized shopping by appointment, plus a hall for private events.

Next door, the Appartamento imagines a supposed 18th-century home, where photographer artist Andreas Gursky has curated his own work alongside antique Italian furniture. It’s invitation-only, reserved for private dinners and special occasions. At the top there is Osservatorio Fondazione Prada, dedicated to visual experimentation across technology and contemporary culture. Together, it’s part store, part archive, part gallery—a synthesis of ideas that exists nowhere else.

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Images: Supplied