Prada rescues a fading icon? Versace bought in €1.25bn Italian fashion shake-up

The iconic gold Medusa head logo — a symbol founder Gianni Versace saw in the Roman ruins he and his siblings grew up playing around in Reggio Calabria — is now set to fall under the control of fashion rival Prada.

Prada has now completed the €1.25 billion purchase that brings Versace, one of Italy’s most flamboyant fashion houses, under the wing of a Milanese fashion empire.

The acquisition is the largest deal in the Prada Group’s 112-year history.

The deal also ends Versace’s seven-year stint inside Capri Holdings, the US-listed group that also owns Michael Kors and Jimmy Choo, who purchased Versace in 2018 for $1.8bn (€1.54bn)

The sale comes after a turbulent period for Versace, whose borderline-gaudy, era-defining collections of the 1980s and 1990s — copied endlessly across the industry — have struggled to compete with the sheer scale and profitability of Europe’s luxury powerhouses.

Donatella Versace, Gianni’s younger sister who took over after his murder in 1997, stepped down in March after nearly half a century of family leadership. She handed the reins to Dario Vitale — a designer who cut his teeth inside the Prada Group.

His appointment marked the first time since 1978 that a Versace collection was not shaped by the founding family, and now it will pass on to another Italian fashion dynasty.

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Prada’s acquistion prevents Versace from being absorbed into one of the French megagroups such as LVMH or Kering who have been consolidating the sector by quietly absorbing legacy brands for decades.

But the move will unite the two houses long portrayed as stylistic opposites: Versace, the maximalist emblem of southern Italian glamour and Prada, a brand more closely aligned with minimalist tastes and the cutting-edge tailoring of Italy’s industrial heartland.

While Versace has largely operated as a single, unified brand built around a clear aesthetic — high-octane glamour and bold Mediterranean sex appeal — Prada has spent decades cultivating a more diversified identity and controls several labels with distinct creative languages. A notable example is Miu Miu, the younger, more playful, sister line founded by Miuccia Prada in the early 1990s.

So far, Prada has said it will not sand down Versace’s identity and is planning a phased relaunch which will incorporate them into Prada’s already vertically integrated manufacturing and supply-chain system. This will give Versace access to 25 global production sites, Prada’s leather-goods factories, and a vast global retail network.

In 2024, Prada Group reported net sales of €5.43bn, a 17% increase compared to 2023. In the same year, the group posted an EBIT (earnings before interest and tax) of around €1.28bn and their net profits reportedly rose to roughly €839 million.

Roughly 50–55% of global personal-luxury goods production is based in Italy, giving Italian houses a natural edge in craftsmanship and manufacturing heritage.

According to a 2025 report, the fashion sector contributes roughly 5% of Italy’s GDP, supports around 1.2 million jobs and accounts for a large share of global luxury production.