Miuccia Prada

Everybody knows that I don't have a muse. I'm not interested in that.

The process of a date, I think, is terrible. Horrible. Because everything is banal and predicted.

I just hate talking about myself.

I always believe in doing new things and using new materials that I have never used or that I didn't like for a long time.

The moment you start being in love with what you're doing, and thinking it's beautiful or rich, then you're in danger.

I like the irony in my work.

I am interested in communicating with the world by selling to many people.

I was a communist, but being left-wing was fashionable. I was no different from thousands of middle-class kids.

Now, I'm not saying I'm fashionable, but there are sociological interests that matter to me, things that are theoretical, political, intellectual and also concerned with vanity and beauty that we all think about but that I try to mix up and translate into fashion.

Usually my ideas come from what I don't want to do, or what I find is old.

I don't believe that anyone is not bothered by critics. I think that everybody cares.

Before I had kids, I was out every night of the week.

I have to say that my husband and my children are so tough, there really is no space for pretension.

I'm not interested in how people dress.

One's life and passion may be elsewhere, but New York is where you prove if what you think in theory makes sense in life.

It's horrible when people are only interested in buying labels, because it doesn't bring them the happiness they think it will.

When I was younger, shopping helped me discover many new places and many new things.

When I design and wonder what the point is, I think of someone having a bad time in their life. Maybe they are sad and they wake up and put on something I have made and it makes them feel just a bit better. So, in that sense, fashion is a little help in the life of a person. But only a little.

My parents were truly severe.

I was a feminist in the Sixties, and can you imagine? The worst thing I could have done was to be in fashion. It was the most uncomfortable position.

I had no fun. My family was too serious.

What people sometimes interpret as quirky is my attempt to subvert the concept of luxury by introducing elements that are considered ordinary or commonplace.

I always wanted to be different. I always wanted to be first.

In Europe the world of fashion is too conservative, very eighties.

Women often don't want to admit that they like fashion. And yet fashion enthralls everyone, from the taxi driver to the mega-intellectual. I have often asked myself why this is. I don't know the answer.