prada ss26 campaign | image of an image

Consuming fashion in a digital world is becoming consistently more mindless. But Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons would like a word (and subtly for us to touch grass every once in a while). Their Spring/Summer 2026 campaign, titled ‘Image of an Image,’ is a meta-commentary on the very act of searching for objectivity in a digital space. As Prada puts it, the project is “both a celebration of fashion imagery and a liberation from it.”

For this season, Prada tapped American artist Anne Collier, whose work has spent decades deconstructing how we interact with photography. The result is a campaign that literally breaks the fourth wall. Instead of a standard hero shot, we are presented with still-life compositions where outside hands hold up physical photographs of the collection.

Within those held photographs, lensed by Oliver Hadlee Pearch, is a cast that perfectly captures the current cultural moment. Hunter Schafer, Nicholas Hoult and Carey Mulligan are joined by the likes of Damson Idris and Levon Hawke (fresh off his debut in ‘Marty Supreme’), alongside musician John Glacier and the legendary Liu Wen. They are captured against the same saturated orange backdrops and grassy fields we saw on the Milan runway back in September, creating a seamless loop between the show and the advertisement.

 

The clothes themselves mirror this idea of recomposition. We’re seeing those structured handbags, sheer lace skirts and the now-iconic opera gloves that dominated the SS26 show. By framing these looks inside another photograph, Prada is leaning into the ‘toolbox’ philosophy Miuccia and Raf discussed after the show – the idea that fashion is something to be edited, handled and assembled by the wearer, not just passively observed.

Prada is not interested in perfect pictures. It is interested in what pictures do, how they circulate and what they leave behind once the moment has passed. 

Discover more here.

photography. courtesy of Anne Collier
words. Gennaro Costanzo