CITY SUMMER TAKES A NEW MEANING IN PRADA DAYS OF SUMMER 2026 CAMPAIGN

words by FRANCESCO PIZZUTI

The man-made and the natural collide in the new Prada Days of Summer 2026 collection campaign as golden sand appears at its most taken out of context: on rooftops of buildings. The beach, usually untouched, wild, is lifted into the city, suspended above citispapes, as the models pose between leisure and control. It is a visual world built on contradiction, very much in line with the contrasts that define Prada’s language. The campaign, featuring Bella Hadid, Damson Idris, Louis Partridge, and Liu Wen, seems to almost want to reimagine what summer means in a metropolitan age.

all images courtesy of PRADA

Photographed by David Sims, the images do not present that gorgeous visual escapism of summer campaigns; there is no distant shoreline untouched by modernity, no paradise of relaxation. Instead, Prada constructs “metropolitan islands”, private oases carved into the logic of the contemporary city. Spaces that are moments of stillness above movement, rest suspended over urban chaos. We could say the beach intervenes in the city.

This tension is mirrored in the collection itself as Prada has long excelled at transforming opposition into elegance. Swimwear meets metropolitan tailoring, undress meets occasion, and casualness is elevated. Prada lets opposites coexist, resulting in pieces that understand modern life as fundamentally hybrid.

When the city creeps into the serene sandscape, it reminds us that there’s friction in desire — this collection is precisely a stylish negotiation of that contradiction. That is Prada’s enduring gift: to make tension feel chic, to shift perspectives and to reimagine contrasts into beauty.