Prada’s new Milan exhibition turns a century of fashion into fresh discoveries

MILAN (AP) — Iconic A-line skirts twirl overhead, silver-covered handbags gleam in a secret underground passage and a spacesuit prototype brings more than a century of fashion history into the future at Prada’s new permanent exhibition in Milan, called “Pradasphere.”The highly visual journey through the Italian luxury brand’s evolution is connecting Prada aficionados with the fashion house’s heritage in ways that go beyond nostalgia, and already is promising a commercial payoff.“The exhibition is a multiplier,” said Lorenzo Bertelli, Prada Group's chief group marketing officer.Prada projects that the Pradasphere exhibition anchoring the brand's expansion in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele shopping arcade will add 100 million euros ($111 million) in annual revenues, and Bertelli said that target could be surpassed.Pradasphere is fully booked into the new year and Bertelli said visitors have shown a tendency to spend more after immersing themselves in the brand’s history, sometimes going