What: Prada is deepening its investment in very important clients, from private Fashion Week programmes to a members-only floor in its renovated Milan Galleria complex, as sales concentrate among the wealthiest luxury shoppers.

Why it is important: Prada's €7 return on every euro spent entertaining top clients puts a benchmark on VIC hospitality at a time when department stores such as Selfridges are building members' clubs to capture the same customers.

Prada is intensifying its focus on its biggest spenders as middle-class luxury demand weakens. For its latest Milan womenswear show, the brand flew more than 100 top clients to the city, offering private access to Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper", privatised restaurant dinners and the chance to buy runway crocodile handbags for a little over $20,000.

The strategy centres on Prada's renovated eight-floor complex in Milan's Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, which combines a public store, exhibition spaces and a private floor offering re-editions, tailoring and fine jewellery. Prada is replicating the concept in 25 luxury capitals. Top clients can commission archive skirts costing up to $100,000, and a small group spent almost a week in French Polynesia in February.

CEO Andrea Guerra says top customers spend about €7 for every euro spent entertaining them, against up to 10 to one claimed by rivals. According to Bain, just over 2% of luxury shoppers generated 45% of purchases in 2024, while luxury's customer base shrank by about 50 million from its 2022 peak. Bernstein analyst Luca Solca warns the upmarket push risks making Prada too expensive, even as it keeps entry points such as a lower-priced recycled capsule.

IADS Notes: Prada's catch-up on top-client hospitality follows a pattern already visible across luxury retail. BoF in May 2026 traced the loss of 50 million luxury customers since 2022 to aggressive price increases and declining perceived quality, noting that the top 2% of spenders now account for 45% of purchases while accessible brands such as Coach capture the aspirational shoppers leaving the category. Multibrand platforms are courting the same clients with similar tools: Bloomberg reported in September 2026 that Mytheresa's owner grew fourth-quarter net sales 7.6% excluding currency by concentrating on ultra-wealthy shoppers, whose top 100,000 customers shop every 28 days and are invited to exclusive brand events in Lake Como and Porto Cervo, a playbook close to Prada's Milan and French Polynesia trips. Department stores are building comparable infrastructure within their flagships, as shown by BoF in April 2026 with Selfridges' 40 Duke members club, which combines private shopping suites, a restaurant and wellness treatments for clients spending at least £20,000 a year, and by The Retail Bulletin in July 2026, which described Selfridges, John Lewis, Liberty and Harrods adding hospitality, beauty workshops and cinemas to compete for dwell time. The commercial case for serving the upper branch of the K-shaped market is also showing in results, as Reuters reported in June 2026 when Macy's raised its outlook on double-digit comparable growth at Bloomingdale's and Bluemercury, driven by affluent shoppers who kept spending while lower-income households pulled back.

Prada is wooing the ultrarich with snorkeling trips and $100,000 skirts