Prada and the Art of Patronage

This article examines the relationship between luxury brands and the arts through an analysis of Prada's patronage of “avant-garde” artists and architects. Luxury is a relational concept and the significance of Prada's strategies of distinction is contextualized within the prevailing narratives of luxury. The collaboration between Prada and Rem Koolhaas in the creation of the New York and Los Angeles epicenter stores provides a detailed case study through which to explore what is at stake in the corporate appropriation of “avant-garde” positions within the parameters of the market. It is argued that the “cultural capital” of artists such as Sachs, Gursky, Elmgreen & Dragset, and architects such as Rem Koolhaas is appropriated to produce symbolic capital for the Prada brand. The proposition that global corporate identity has increasingly become linked with artistic creativity is tested in relation to Pierre Bourdieu's writings about social distinction (1984) and his analysis of the “field” of cultural production (1993).