Prada Factory Outlet Tuscany

Fashion Designer Prada was founded in 1913 in Milan, Italy as a manufacturer of leather bags. What is known today as Prada is mostly the work of the founder's grand-daughter Miuccia Prada.

This series of Factory Outlets including the Prada Factory Outlet are presented by Alessandro Sorbello, freelance travel writer, editor and producer. Miuccia Prada was born in 1949. After university, she entered the family business 1978 and soon revolutionized the appearance of its products. Her interest in unusual fabrics led to the distinctive trademark of Prada products: the surprising combination of materials.

There are usually two discoveries to be made when dealing with Prada products: First, the surprise to see the use of a specific material in an unusual context and in consequence, the astonishment how good it fits the purpose.

In 1989, she introduced women's wear with instant success, men's wear followed equally successful in 1995.

Prada is said to be the most prominent example of a new form of inward-directed luxury. While in the eighties luxury was explicitly displayed, today an understated luxury is sought, only recognizable by insiders.

Thus, Prada clothes avoid very loud clouring and easily appealing appearances. They are described as cool, comfortable, pure, graceful, and minimalist. Miuccia Prada, who is entirely in charge of the companies creative decisions, says she bases her decisions mostly on intuition. She is reported to be overly fussy about each detail of her design. It can happen that each product has to be changed over and over in order to come closest to Miucci Prada's initial idea. Her husband Patrizio Bertelli is the business-man behind Miuccia Prada. He is responsible for the commercial side of the products and the retail strategy.

Prada Factory Outlet

Prada aka I Pellettieri d'Italia
Localit Levanella, 52025
Montevarchi (Arezzo)
Tuscany, Italy.

tel:
+(055).9180436
+(055).9180488
+(055).9789635
+(055).9789636

The Designers of Madonna,
Monica Bellucci, Isabella Rossellini, Kylie Minogue and Angelina Jolie, amongst others who are also known
to wear Prada and Gucci and
Dolce & Gabbana you may also be interested in other Factory Outlets in the
area and around Italy

How to find it
Directions: The exit off the autostrada is Valdarno (Montevarchi), the town is Levanelle, the landmark to look for is the 2nd IP gas station opposite a factory building with a sawtooth roof.

Look for signs for I Pelleteria d'Italia. Take a number and wait. Avoid the weekends. Closed: Sunday morning. You can also take a train from Florence to Montevarchi (35 minutes) and then a cab.

Information about Italy and its regions and atractions. Taormina in Sicily is a popular and fashionable tourist resort with famously stunning views and a picturesque Greco-Roman theatre, high above the sea and facing Etna. As an attractive and permanently-fashionable destination, Taormina is known as a delightful but expensive place to stay. Many of the town's hotels and restaurants are in the upper price-bracket. Tuscany (which is one of the 20 regions of Italy) is divided into 10 different Provinces which are listed on the left with Florence the Capital. Tuscany is a charmed land, equally blessed by the genius of man and nature, and often by the combined efforts of both. Think of the vineyards: rows of baby green vines that manage somehow to march in arrow-straight formation up the gently rolling hillsides, bounded by single files of darker green cypress trees, snaking sandy roads leading to rust-colored farmhouses and moss-coated castles, symmetrically rounded hilltops surmounted by towns so homogeneous as to seem one single building.

With water, water everywhere, Venice, Italy, is a small and entrancing city, said to have more great art and architecture per square inch than any other place in the world. Hot in July and August, its weather is generally mild through the rest of the year, though punctuated by thunder and rainstorms.

Founded more than a thousand years ago by refugees erecting houses on stilts on mudflats, Venice has grown into a city of 117 painstakingly constructed islands, connected by some 150 canals and 400 bridges. Over the past 20 years a new type of tourism has grown strongly throughout Italy, Agritourism or Agriturismo as it is know in Italy. This type of tourism is orientated around having a rural experience which you share with the family who owns the farm or Agritourism on which you are staying.

Castiglion Fiorentino is near Cortona in Tuscany, enjoy footage of the area taken from the air. Produced by Alessandro Sorbello

Generally, these properties are vineyards or orchards and you are able to enjoy the fruits of the farm and in many cases your meals are prepared in traditional settings and dishes by the family itself. An Agritourism or as they also known farm stay, is any land based farm or business that is open to the public.

These specialized farms generally offer things to see, things to do, and produce or gifts to buy, and are open to the public at least some parts of the year. Some are open 365 days, some only open for a few weekends in the fall. All offer a unique farm experience and are generally appealing to all members in a family.

Agritourisms in Italy have been developed as a valuable component of a business model to support many agricultural entities when the farm products they produce are no longer economically competitive otherwise. The miracle of Italy is that all its treasures come packaged in a gorgeous country of majestic mountains, placid lakes, idyllic islands, splendid cities and wonderful walled villages. An ideal climate plus warm and gracious people make Italy a perfect destination for an active vacation, the art lover, the gourmand, the hedonist combined, why not, with business. There is a place where you don't need words to be understood, comparisons to feel you're just fine, strong sensations to thrill with excitement. That place is the Tuscan countryside, and you are its guest. You will discover, on a farm, a vacation you have never tried before, one that will put you at ease at once: the vacation is Farm tourism and it transports you to a world you feel yours at last.

Tuscany is exceptional in every regard, even by Italy's exalted standards. In Florence, it has Europe's greatest Renaissance city, in Siena and San Gimignano, two of its most perfect medieval towns, and, in Lucca, Cortona and Pienza, historical gems of which any country would be proud. As if these were not enough, it is also renowned for its food and wine, its beaches, its villas and gardens, and for some of the world's most beautiful and varied landscapes where you may choose to find an apartment. From the Arab-Norman and Byzantine wonders of Palermo in Sicily to the majestic peaks of the Dolomites, Italy is a movable feast of endless courses, castles and wines. No matter how much you gorge yourself on its splendours, you always feel you haven't made it past the antipasti. Few countries offer such variety and few visitors leave without a fervent desire to return. The Italians are not joking when they call their home Il Belpaese, the Beautiful Country.