January 2, 2025 |
Rigidly posed with a Sixties-style bob and a hole-punched pencil skirt, devil-may-care with a punk pixie cut and floral sundress or wrapped in a warm woollen coat with 1970s swept bangs, the many faces of Carey Mulligan make Prada’s new spring/summer 2025 campaign. Lensed by none other than fashion photography legend Steven Meisel, the multimedia rollout, dubbed Act Like Prada, marks the first time in ten years that the photography legend has shot a Prada campaign.
Stepping into the role of ten imaginary characters to explore “the notion of plurality”, as the house puts it, the three-time Academy Award nominated actress and brand ambassador sports some of the best bits from the summer collection – which made its debut during Paris Fashion Week in September of last year. In vibrant knit jumpers and collared shirts, fringe-rimmed dresses and carabiner-fastened pleated skirts, Mulligan appears again and again, reincarnating in new, equally fabulous looks that suggest different personalities and lives. The clothes help to alter her attitude, reshaping her into a gaggle of quirky characters realised by just one individual and presented as a series of visually arresting portraits. According to the house, it’s “a reflection of our concurrent realities, a multiplicitous vision of women, an ever-shifting perception of Prada”.
At that, acting is not static, nor is fashion, nor is Prada. In fact, the French house is always changing, shifting and growing, so much so that it’d be no picnic to categorise it and keep it in a box. Both immediately recognisable and hard to put a finger on, the campaign reflects this, entering into a visceral study of Prada and the many, many ways it can unpredictably occupy space.
Photography by Steven Meisel.
