First impressions can be deceptive. When Miuccia Prada initially encountered Theaster Gates at the jazz club Ronnie Scott’s in London, Gates was performing on stage with his band The Black Monks. “I thought, my God! He looks so intimidating and unreachable,” says the co-chief executive officer and co-creative director of Italian fashion house Prada, who is also the creative director of Miu Miu. Gates, a multidisciplinary artist whose oeuvre spans sculpture, performance, installation, space theory and land development, laughs at the memory: “We had been rehearsing so much I had lost my voice. I was concentrating on making sure the notes that came out were good.” Ten years later, Prada and Gates are the best of friends and collaborators – in the summer they celebrated the first European gathering for Dorchester Industries Experimental Design Lab: a Prada Group-funded initiative with Gates’s Rebuild Foundation. The Lab is a three-year programme that aims to support and amplify the work of artists and designers of colour, investing in their development and exposing them to organisations interested in working with diverse talent, including the Prada brand itself. Read @harrietquick interview online now @fthtsi