All that prologue out of the way, it’s fair to say that, by the time Miuccia Prada took over Prada in 1977, nylon wasn’t the most popular fabric, a few hemispheres away from the silk replacement it was originally designed as. Prada’s history before Muiccia was like that of many luxury houses, specializing in luxury leather goods with a focus on bags and trunks. By the time she joined, the house was fading from relevance. Speaking to 10 Magazine about her time joining the house, she said “Back then, I didn’t really like anything I saw. It all just looked so old and bourgeois and boring. I just wanted to search for the absolute opposite of what was already out there.” One of the first things she did was begin using nylon, something that went relatively under the radar until she announced Prada’s new turn in product form.

It was in 1984 that Miuccia Prada created the next it bag, a nylon backpack that observers would call “anti-luxury.” It would become a best seller and, more importantly, a calling card for what Prada stood for, attracting young consumers in a way the house never managed to before.

Speaking to The Independent in 2004, she spoke about how she aimed to buck the luxury system through this fabric usage. "Labels like Gucci and Hermès had always done the same bags for many years. I treated bags as if they were fashion,” she said. At the time much of the fashion world first balked at the bag being priced the same as leather goods, which Miuccia would push back on in the same interview, saying, “those bags were more expensive than the leather ones because learning how to work with the nylon took three or four years. We had to develop the technique."

It was a technique the group would go on to refine, eventually finding an even higher grade of nylon. Speaking to 10 Magazine, Prada said, “Back in the 1990s, I found a company that was spinning a very specific type of nylon. It was more expensive than silk because the thread is really thin and very precious.” That comparison was likely no accident, and it’s fair to assume that Miuccia Prada was more than aware of nylon’s relationship to silk, even if fashion critics hadn’t made the connection and still insisted on using the late-’60s definition of the fabric.

When Prada launched its first ever womenswear collection during the Fall/Winter 1988 season, it piggybacked off the success of the nylon backpack, using the fabric throughout the show on outerwear, trousers, dresses and suiting. The collection wasn’t well received and she was unhappy with herself for having compromised on her ideas.

“I hated all the people around me and I told them it was the last time others would push me to do what I didn’t want to do,” she told The Independent in a 1996 interview. “You know, when I started, people in the company wanted to make sure it would sell. They thought my ideas wouldn’t sell so they were trying to make me do things that were more commercial.”

Instead of being forced into what others thought would be commercial, she pushed forward with the focus on nylon, and by the mid-’90s had become synonymous with the once-maligned-but-also-still-slightly-maligned fabric. “People around me can say it’s shit but if I think it’s right, it’s right,” she said in the same interview. I’m really strong in what I see. In the end I go by instinct. Evidently, so far, it’s led me the right way.”

This instinct saw Prada’s nylon pieces become a mainstay of the collection, working as a quiet signifier of the brand. “If you don’t want to be recognized in Prada you don’t have to be,” she said. “But if you do want to be recognized in Prada, you can be. This is very important to me.” The usage of nylon was only bolstered by the introduction of menswear, which launched with a Fall/Winter 1995 collection helmed by Neil Barrett. Menswear lent itself even easier to the use of nylon, working in a variety of workwear and utilitarian silhouettes.

By the advent of Prada Sport in 1998—the cultish sublabel that served as a forerunner to the rise of athleisure and luxury streetwear that would emerge decades later—nylon was closely aligned with the Prada brand. If Prada was thoughtful and future-facing, the synthetic fabric became a signature staple of the house's vision.

It’s this uniformity that sees Prada’s clothing fill up store shelves and make its way to the Met Gala. By using such a utilitarian fabric as its base, the clothing becomes unrestricted in a way that isn’t possible with the original nylon, silk.

Prada has paid homage to its roots with the Re-Nylon range, focusing on accessories while using Econyl, which uses recycled nylon yarn throughout. The collection consists of a tote, shoulder bag, belt bag and, of course, two backpacks. It’s a full-circle move that Miuccia surely approves of.