Prada is separating from 222 suppliers

Italian luxury fashion house Prada has stopped working with 222 suppliers over the past five years due to compliance violations. This is the result of a “zero tolerance” review introduced in response to allegations of abusive working conditions in the fashion industry’s supply chains. The British newspaper Financial Times reported on the figures that Prada provided and confirmed to FashionUnited.

Since 2020, the Milan-based company has carried out more than 850 inspections of suppliers and subcontractors. The results of more than a quarter of these reviews led the fashion house to reduce its supplier list because labor law violations were discovered. Prada currently has around a thousand suppliers and subcontractors in northern and central Italy.

At the end of November, the company’s management reiterated that the production model developed by the Prada Group also includes direct control of the supply chain to guarantee a true “Made in Italy”.

“We have decided to publish the names of the suppliers of which we are particularly proud. As you know, in the long term we will disclose all of them anyway,” said Lorenzo Bertelli, the chief marketing officer and head of corporate social responsibility of the Prada Group, during a meeting with media representatives. “The company is not legally obliged to disclose all levels of the production chain. If one day the reporting requirements change, we will be very happy to disclose 100 percent, but it must be the same for everyone. But today why should we give an advantage to competitors who could collect information about our production chain?”