Prada Fall 2024 Ad Campaign

Review of Prada Fall 2024 Ad Campaign by Creative Director Ferdinando Verderi, Photographer Willy Vanderperre, and Writer Miranda July with models Harris Dickinson, Damson Idris, Yili Ma, Hunter Schafer, and Letitia Wright

Prada is calling… The brand’s latest campaign takes a minimal and deconstructionist approach to exploring conversation, connection, and context. The campaign features creative direction from Ferdinando Verderi and photography by Willy Vanderperre.

The campaign film also features snippets of script written by author and filmmaker Miranda July, who is fresh off a bestselling tear from her most recent novel All Fours. Embodied by a cast of actors, all of them returning Prada ambassadors, the film abstractly explores the idea of conversation out of context. Stitched together with rapid editing, we hear tiny moments of larger conversations that give us a window into an emotional world without actually letting us draw any conclusions about story or character. While this might mean that it’s tough to nail down an emotional connection to the campaign, the way that its characters exude such a strong sense of personality and connection even in these brief moments means that we stay enthralled, wanting to know what’s happening, never getting that clarity, but ultimately being okay with it.

Though the campaign’s theme of conversation most strikingly comes through in the film, it makes for a strong set of still portraits as well. Frozen in time, the characters speak on the phone or react to what is being said by the person with whom they are speaking in conversations we can only guess at. Here again the campaign makes great use of its talented cast of actors; they are not just posing, but playing. The idea of a phone conversation also intriguingly extends the theme of speaking to another person across a physical distance; the characters are both connected and individually isolated.

Prada continues to have one of the smartest takes on brand ambassadors and creative partnerships. More than just celebrity names, the brand leverages strong casting choices – and, in this latest instance, a unique writing partnership – into real storytelling. Executing its theme of conversation with clarity and style, the campaign is another great example of why we’re always ready to hear what Prada has to say.