A campaign as a dialogue - Prada in conversation. The Fall/Winter 2024 Prada advertising campaign embraces a fundamental tenet at the heart of the house’s creativity: the notion of conversing, of exchange of ideas.
Honest human interaction is at the core of Prada’s identity - the foundation of its expression of fashion, and the root of the creative partnership between Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons. Every Prada collection is a conversation, an interplay of contrasting opinions and viewpoints, both within the designs themselves, and in their rapport with their audience. Fashion is an exchange. That ideology is extended to encompass the concept behind Prada’s visual imagery, a mirror of actuality – the now, the here.
An ensemble cast of world-renowned actors are captured in intimate and unrehearsed interaction, stolen moments, photographed by Willy Vanderperre. Harris Dickinson, Damson Idris, Yili Ma, Hunter Schafer and Letitia Wright engage with one another, both face-to-face and via phone, the images of their interchanges nodding simultaneously to the fiction of different eras, of narrative cinema and the verity of documentary. They speak from a script created by American filmmaker, artist, and writer Miranda July, whose own work constantly explores these ideas of discussion, of links between individuals forged by language.
The campaign extends into reality, not just observing but instigating dialogue as action: sets of conversation cards, written by Miranda July, propose topics to discuss among friends. Within the accompanying short films, directed by Oscar-nominated documentary director Garret Bradley, July is herself an invisible protagonist - we hear her voice on the other side of the phone, confessing fragments of imaginary narratives. In both images and film, these conversations are tantalizingly out of reach - seen, sometimes partially heard, they invite revelation in the imagining of their entirety.
The campaign imagery is informal and direct, simple and true. It reflects innately human gestures and impulses - our need to connect, to offer opinions, to listen and learn. Talking is a group activity. Here, these individuals become a collective, linked through their trade of ideas, their reciprocal harmonies – the singular becomes the plural. Bringing people together, to commune is to create.
