Prada Purchases Versace for $1.5 B

 

BY C STONE | THE SUPER HOT |||| EDITOR IN CHIEF ||| FASHION BUSINESS NEWS

The Prada Group has purchased Versace for $1.5 B, according to multiple news sources.

The company completed the acquisition and hopefully will leave the bespoke brand in place. I've always had a fondness for Versace over Prada, at which I called 'the alt fashion choice'. 

via the Washington Post:

As The Washington Post’s then-fashion critic Rachel Tashjian wrote at the time, the move put two of fashion’s most prominent women, who couldn’t have been more different, into direct juxtaposition: “Miuccia Prada, the intellectual matriarch of an old-money fashion behemoth from the chilly, stylish north comes together with Donatella Versace, the up-from-her-bootstraps, pop-culture-obsessed babe of the country’s rough, parochial south.”

Like much of the luxury fashion industry, Versace has seen its sales suffer as a result of the recent downturn in demand. (The “quiet luxury” trend of the last few years, too, has probably hurt the demand for Versace’s loud-and-proud, over-the-top sexy designs.) Versace’s previous parent company, Capri Holdings, put it up for sale in February.

The Prada Group, by contrast, has weathered the shift in demand more successfully, buoyed by sales of Miu Miu’s youthful, playful designs.

Versace joins a robust lineup of luxury brands under the Prada Group, which also owns the footwear brands Church’s and Car Shoe, as well as the sailing team Luna Rossa.