Review of Prada Spring 2022 Ad Campaign by Creative Director Ferdinando Verderi and Photographer David Sims with Talent Hunter Schafer, Selena Forrest, Julia Nobis, & Lina Zhang
Prada sets the mood with a masterfully minimal yet evocatively complex new campaign for Spring 2022. The campaign features creative direction from Ferdinando Verderi and photography by David Sims.
Sims’ photography subtly develops on the themes of femininity, constraint, liberation, and body that characterize Miuccia Prada’s and Raf Simons’ design work for the collection. With studio backdrops of rich blue or red, his side-by-side portraits capture their subjects in moments of interaction with the clothing they wear: they tighten a belt, adjust a hem, pull a cord.
Through Sims’ delicate attention to detail – as well as the subtly sensuous, perhaps almost bondage-influenced character of the collection – these minute interactions become rich explorations on the feeling of being embodied and the relationship between self and body.
Starring Hunter Schafer, the accompanying short film develops on this theme through intricate camerawork and sound design. With the hair-raising sonic definition of an ASMR, the film captures fleeting details as Schafer interacts with her clothing, in particular the train of her skirt – which was the most prominently defining sartorial feature of the collection. In a voiceover she ruminates on the feeling of wearing a train, encapsulating the campaign’s ethos with the thought that it feels like an extension of the body.
Both film and photographs are finished off with simple yet powerful art direction featuring the tagline “In The Mood For Prada.” With the previous line being “Feels Like Prada,” the new slogan is a brilliant continuation of the brand’s recent, masterful synthesis of conceptual text and image.
Prada Creative Directors | Miuccia Prada & Raf Simons
Creative Director | Ferdinando Verderi
Photographer | David Sims
Talent | Hunter Schafer, Selena Forrest, Julia Nobis, & Lina Zhang