Prada group to invest 60 million in Italian factories

At a time of great uncertainty but also great opportunity, Italian luxury brands and groups are verticalizing and expanding their production chains. One of the leading ones in Italy is Prada, which recently announced its plans to invest 60 million euros in the expansion of its factories and, specifically, in its plant in Torgiano dedicated to knitwear production, which is expected to double in size-while elsewhere the group plans other acquisitions of small factories, the opening of a plant in Siena dedicated to leather goods and also an automatic shoe production plant in its Levane factory as well as the hiring of more than 400 new employees, half of whom come from the academy established by the group in the early 2000s to teach craft techniques. A permanent branch of this academy will be opened in the Scandicci factory, one of the Group's main facilities, where the first 30 students will be introduced this year. The Prada Group is also very proud to own its own plants: during a press conference Massimo Vian, the Group's COO, specified that all Prada and Miu Miu samples are produced in-house and that the Group's archive (which we would all like to get into, let's face it) contains 45,000 references.

In addition, 66 percent of the Group's energy now comes from renewable sources, a percentage that is steadily increasing, and new prototype creation programs that take advantage of 3D designs have also cut production time and costs-the shoes in the latest FW23 show, for example, were all developed this way. The investment plans of the Prada Group, which employs more than 13,000 people worldwide, are actually slightly less than the investments the Group has already made in the past year, which amounted to 70 million euros, spent mostly on vertical integration, new technologies and industrial production processes, expansion of pre-existing factories and improvements to efficiency. It is a type of expansion that, as we said, is becoming more common in the upper strata of the luxury industry, but for the Group it comes as a new endeavor after a very successful year that saw the flagship Prada become the world's most sought-after brand with 4.2 billion euros in revenue.