words by NIA TOPALOVA
editor MAREK BARTEK
Miuccia Prada has always been explicit about her identity split, placing Prada as the real flesh, necessary side of who she already is, and Miu Miu her playground for idealisation and aspiration. This season's winter campaigns offer us a peek of how both sides are in fact in constant process of reflecting, and challenging one another.
Miu Miu’s world is Miuccia’s free-spirited, fairytale world, moving through the earthy and the imagined; Named after her childhood family nickname, Miu Miu offers a lighter, more eccentric sense of spirit. For the holiday season, a short film by Emilie Blichfeldt took place in a grand townhouse, with rooms diffused by winter light immersing us in a seasonal dream, photographed by Tina Barney, giving the holiday season a theatrical, playful bourgeois makeover through an Uptown fairytale.
Crystal Fish, Gigi Hadid, Louisa Jacobson, XiaoWen Ju, Georgia Martin, Momo and Nyla Singleton move through antiques, heirlooms and elegant interiors in embroidered silk dresses, polished leathers, sequined bralettes and satin slipdresses. Footwear was focused on the iconic loafer and ballerinas, bags include Beau, Vivant and Arcadie, in leather or crocodile embossed calfskin. The looks were finished by eyewear, hair accessories, mittens, hats, scarves and jewellery. Models’ arms held specially crafted by Miu Miu plush toy bears, rabbits and geese (a few walking ones, as well).
On the other hand, created entirely by hand, the Prada Holiday campaign this season took inspiration from the human core of storytelling, inventing magical impossibilities created by the anachronistic and romantic technique of hand-drawn illustrations by artists led by John Pomeroy, the cinematic animator who has helped define some of the leading productions of the past fifty years.
Prada presented a new generation of acting talent with Chen Haoyu, Luther Ford, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Maya Hawke and Sadie Sink, surrounded by whimsical wintertime scenes. Still images and filmic shorts were combined in a real-life action with illustrated animations making plenty of space for pure imagination to unfold.
The campaign was captured by Glen Luchford, who so masterfully plays with lighting and perspective in order to mirror the hand-drawn illustrations, echoing the charm of old Hollywood and age-old fables, filled with storybook holiday scenes and animal characters. The sense of touch expresses a fundamental concept of humanity, a connection with craft that always is, and always has been, at the very heart of Prada’s approach to creation.
Prada has long been the older, more considered and “sophisticated” sister of Miu Miu, for which fantasy is the starting point of the conversation since its debut at 34 Avenue Foch, featuring childlike elements such as pie-crust collars and puffed sleeves. Miuccia has talked of Miu Miu as the more naïve, impulsive, light-hearted part of her, the one she tries not to think about for way too long.
This season, perhaps the younger sister label was slowly adulting, or at least it seemed like it, letting the older one revisit these much cherished childhood memories of carefree Christmas days spent in front of the fireplace, watching cartoons at a home infused by dear scents of hot cocoa and cinnamon.
Even so, the seriousness and structure of Prada was still hidden in the silhouettes so neatly, in a much definite Miuccia manner, while simultaneously, Miu Miu’s campaign presented a portrait of an aristocratic behaviour subverted by humour and play. In a way, the two sides of Miuccia intertwined with a great sense of ease, in fact a very refreshing one, and perhaps that was just what we needed.
