Transcending time, evoking tenderness, and celebrating the essence of love, Prada‘s exploration into the profound and enduring aspects of human nature takes center stage in the Fall/Winter 2023 collections and campaigns. In a poetic dance of metaphor, the theme of flowers emerges – symbols that embody both reverence and gestures of warmth, now magnified to human proportions, evoking emotions that resonate beyond the ordinary.
Five luminous stars – Benedict Cumberbatch, Hunter Schafer, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Letitia Wright, and Li Xian – embody cinematic allure and form a constellation that aligns with Prada’s rich connection to the world of film. Their enigmatic presence interlaces with that of the towering floral counterparts, igniting surreal dialogues – exchanges of visual and emotional language. In this intricate interplay of scale and sentiment, flowers cease to be mere adornments; they metamorphose into living protagonists, their silent eloquence now animated.
Captured through the lens of Willy Vanderperre, each flower, grandly beyond life-sized, encounters a distinct figure, establishing a harmony of exchanges both literal and abstract. The accompanying campaign films, scripted by Michael Cunningham – the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hours (1998) – orchestrate these extraordinary encounters, melding the human and botanical narratives.
Much like the paradoxical nature of conversations, the flower itself mirrors a dual identity – fragile yet resilient, mundane yet precious, fleeting yet timeless, each bloom stands as a unique embodiment. An emblem of our shared human experience, the flower becomes an outer representation of our innermost thoughts and emotions, converging in a symphony of meaning. It’s a synergy that renders the ethereal tangible, an artistic endeavor that crafts real emotions through the lens of seemingly unreal imagery.
Photographer: Willy Vanderperre
Creative Direction: Ferdinando Verderi
