Milan, 6^th December 2023 — Pradasphere II, a public exhibition tracing the history and culture of Prada from its origins in 1913 to the present day, opens today at the Start Museum in Shanghai, China. Told through a selectionof stories curated by -creative directors Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons, the exhibition is as rich as it is intimate. More than 400 artifacts — physical and digital — are on display, drawn from the fashion archive as well as decades-long engagements across art, architecture, culture, and sport. Building on the success of the first iteration in 2014, this exhibition follows the groundbreaking trajectory of Prada, exploring the indelible impact of its vision on luxury, beauty, and fashion as an intellectual act.

Staged as a lush magazzino, the Italian word for warehouse, Pradasphere II is a cross-section of the multivalent Prada universe. Created in collaboration with 2x4, the New York City and Beijing-based design studio, the exhibition juxtaposes the rough and refined: constructed of industrial warehouse shelving lined with precious pink silk velvet. Together, the exhibition puts forward a way of thinking about luxury: fashion intersects with life — history, art, sport, architecture, and sound.

FRATELLI PRADA recreates a fragment of the original Fratelli Prada shop in Milan, including super-high-resolution videos of many of the original objects offered, as well as three recently-reissued purses, and recreations of the murals Mario Prada commissioned in the early 1920s.

PRADA A MILANO displays over thirty photographs from the great photographer Albert Watson and specimens of Miuccia Prada’s earliest Nylon collection.

GALLERY presents, for the first time, two new artworks by British artist Damien Hirst that include thirty of the most precious handbags from the Prada archive in one of the artist’s iconic cabinets, and a Galleria bag displayed in a tank from Hirst’s Natural History series. This collaboration epitomizes Prada’s relationship with some of the most significant artists, an essential way the brand extends beyond fashion.

GREEN STORE recreates a fragment of Prada’s iconic store display and presents a chronological overview of the most notable shoes.

CINEMA presents a continuous program of Prada collaborations with directors Ridley Scott, Wes Anderson, David O. Russell, and Yang Fudong, among many others.

VITRINE presents t wenty significant bags from the Prada archive, featuring those silhouettes that have become iconic for the house. From the Galleria to the Cleo, these forms reveal a deep formal sensibility, specific to Prada, as well as the impeccable craftsmanship for which they are known.

ARCHITECTURE offers never-before-displayed documents pertaining to major Prada architecture projects from architects Rem Koolhaas/OMA, Jacques Herzog/Herzog & de Meuron, and others.

MATERIALITY reveals twenty first-ever exhibited skirts created exclusively for the Shanghai Pradasphere, demonstrating the extraordinary craftsmanship and striking materiality of the Prada workroom.