Prada F/W 16/17 Ad Campaign by Steven Meisel

Prada unveils its seasonal campaign for the Fall/Winter 2016 Womenswear collection by Steven Meisel featuring twenty-seven top models set against multiple artificial backgrounds. The campaign introduces Miuccia Prada’s highly regarded collection that takes as its subject the current cultural bricolage where every code, every style, every fragment in fashion history, and every personal experience, is equally present and available to the designer.

The ensembles juxtapose radically divergent shards of silhouette, materiality, technique, and accessories in exuberant compositions: prints, argyles, lames, quilting, heavy knits, brocade, nylon, illustration, leather, satin, velvet, all have their place.

Presented as a series of rough collages, the campaign evokes the deeply human – and inexorably feminine – nature of Prada’s eclectic collection. The designer depicts a woman’s identity as conundrum, an intersection of overlapping and interdependent systems. Every woman carries on her body fragments of her own history, her experiences, her loves, her tragedies.

These various references accrue with time, with age, with knowledge, so that each woman is an ineffable agglomeration of the symbols and indices of her personal journey. Such symbols find parallels in the simultaneously restrictive and liberating clichés of the feminine wardrobe: dress, corset, belt, garter, brassiere, high heel. In dressing each morning, a woman recomposes her unique collage of a life. Therein lies her strength.

By generalizing the message over twenty-seven different models – there is no single face – Prada enacts her theory of individualization. Each body reorders the elements of the collection in a singular way. The models are placed against randomized backgrounds that suggest a radical insouciance.

The settings are interchangeable, indicated by the placelessness of landscapes. The scenery ends abruptly, the edges clearly exposed: day and night collide; desert and seascape occupy the same conceptual space. As the woman roams through the world she carries her stories on her back. In the end, place is unimportant, the narrative only coheres on the body itself. The woman is the site.

Photos © Prada.

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Miu Miu S/S 16 Ad Campaign by Steven Meisel

 

The Miu Miu woman possesses a creative intelligence and an overtly rebellious sense of fashion, perfect for a label that defies any preconceived category or aesthetic. It is fitting then that the seasonal advertising campaigns have often featured emerging actors: Miu Miu celebrates the outsider, the iconoclast, and the risk-taker.

The S/S 16 collection is a study in extreme contrasts: tweed, jacquard, knit, satin, gingham, lace and leather are all featured simultaneously in complex, textural compositions. The colors are as diverse as the materiality comprising greys and taupes intercut with deep maroon, gold, and blue. The forms range from the exaggerated trench with white and brown leather to a yoked cotton shirt drawn straight from the prairie.

For the S/S 16 campaign, long-time creative partner Steven Meisel brings the collection to life through a series of elegant portraits featuring a quartet of new, international actors – contrasts in themselves – Millie Brady, Julia Garner, Matilda Lutz and India Salvor Menuez.

Always the consummate craftsman, Meisel presents his impeccable images in a frank, straightforward manner. Tightly cropped, asymmetric, and shot against a neutral grey backdrop, the actors directly confront the camera in a manner that highlights their expressive range and luminous beauty. The neutrality of the approach reveals the richness of the eclectic looks coupled with the palpable intelligence of the women.

Photos © Miu Miu / Meisel.

How do you like the ad campaign? How do you like the choice of actresses instead of models?

Prada Resort 2016 Advertising Campaign by Steven Meisel

Steven Meisel captures a series of informal portraits for Prada’s Resort 2016 advertising campaign. Pop decorativism is subverted by industrial minimalism, as his muses lock us in an authoritative gaze.

Lexi Boling, Meghan Collison, Ina Jensen, Lineisy Montero, Julia Nobis and Greta Varlese are bad girls turned good, or good girls turned bad, exuding a kind of unhinged innocence. The cool knowingness of their gaze is offset by expressive body language, hands on hips or folded across the body, arms swinging as if in dance.

The concept of post-modesty and luxury are investigated in a dialogue of contrasts and dichotomies. High impact pieces, with soft silhouettes, are based on the simple T-shirt. Paillette-covered coats, leather shifts and skin-tight printed sweaters are layered over extra-long striped sleeves. Multi-coloured bags in printed or perforated leathers and bold, oversize earrings are all part of the story. Decorativism, through the serial repetition of symbols recalls the concept of post-pop art. Simplicity becomes uniqueness.

An anonymous silver backdrop suggesting a post-industrial landscape jars with this sensual overload, suggesting the collection’s recurring rabbit motif is perhaps not as naive as it seems. Shadow falls across the images, reminding us darkness and light often come entwined. The gaze of the muses is both complex and seductive, warning anyone following them down this particular rabbit hole to expect the unexpected.

Photos © Prada / Steven Meisel.

I`m superloving Prada`s bunnies! The pixel- or xerox-effect and the arrows add a postmodern edge to it. Very cool! 

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Prada Fall / Winter 2015 Advertising Campaign by Steven Meisel

Steven Meisel reframes the notion of reality in an elegant, ironic ode to meta-modern femininity. The narratives bring to life a feeling of natural elegance, where suspended youthfulness intermingles with the classic, and very new codes of the ultra-feminine. 

 There is a relaxed feel to the casual postures, rooted in the real, frozen moments of an imagined story. The perfect soft pastel surroundings are pure artifice, upon which the layering of multiple codes and narratives is played out. 

The materials of the collection re-wire tradition with science, to bring illusory surfaces and new forms and uses to fabric. Cropped trouser suits appear in otherworldly colors as ununiform. A subtle but significant re-addressing is played out when opposites such as opera gloves and cropped metallic sparkling tops are paired to create powerful new codes of attraction. 

The distinctive architecture of the clothes is reflected in the staging of these wide-screen vignettes, where off-hand gestures and a playful body language are casually orchestrated in a conversation about the power of a hyper-style reality. 

The season’s exciting new faces are the stars: Avery Blanchard, Estella Boersma, Inga Dezhina, Lineisy Montero, Ine Neefs, Greta Varlese and Maartje Verhoef.

Photos © Prada / Meisel.

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Season Favourite: Prada S/S 15 Ad Campaign by Steven Meisel

  Can a woman exude confidence yet be relaxed; appear uninhibited and carefree, yet remain in control? These seemingly contradictory states are explored in the new campaign for Prada by Steven Meisel.
   
Gemma Ward, Julia Nobis and Ine Neefs take centre stage. They are all portrayed in a different mood: stoic, psychedelic and intimate. A black and white studio shot is strong and defiant. A graffiti pastel backdrop channels movement and a youthful attitude. Then we’re drawn in close, into a seductive bedroom scene.

 
The diverse settings, contrasting moods and seemingly disconnected narratives form a dynamic backdrop for the Spring/Summer collection. The clothes draw together this diverse series, with a distinctive blend of fabrics, colours and silhouettes. Precious materials – antique brocade modelled on the 1800s through to the 60s – meets humble cotton, gauze and raw leather. Silk jacquard socks are a modern and elegant leitmotif.
 
  The season’s bags are reinterpreted in their own revealing character study. One moment they are held protectively, the next they are casually flung on to a bed. Still lives suggest a free and fleeting moment, as if the wearer has just arranged them in a peculiar bedroom ritual. Within each image the many facets of the Prada woman shift and overlap, part of an interconnected and contradictory story. A spirit of confidence and optimism suggest there are many more stories to be told.
   Pictures © Prada.

How amazing to see Gemma Ward in a Prada ad again. I`m loving the elegant yet mysterious mood that Steven Meisel creates in this wonderful ad campaign. Season favourite!
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Season Favourite: Roberto Cavalli S/S 12 Campaign by Steven Meisel

The new Roberto Cavalli advertising campaign for Spring/Summer 2012 revolves around the iconic beauty of four Supermodels: Naomi Campbell, Karen Elson, Kristen McMenamy and Daphne Groeneveld are the Florentine designer’s muses, as he chose to represent the collection through women who embody the standards of a modern appeal.



Steven Meisel shot the campaign in the studios situated on Pier 59 in New York, set against a monochromatic background which emphasises the splendour of the printed silk dresses and the garments, illuminated by golden embroidery and sumptuous embellishments. The make up was done by Pat McGrath.

Pictures are property of Roberto Cavalli

A static equilibrium, a structured form that creates a perfect geometry, with Naomi Campbell capturing attention with her magnetic gaze, bright and sensual. An extremely sophisticated and feminine vision.



Ladies and gentlemen, this is my favourite campaign S/S 12!

It is ABSOLUTELY PERFECT; it features four stunning Supermodels, representing different types of women in different ages, in breathtaking dresses. It is shot by my favourite photographer, who knows that 'the perfect woman' in the perfect dress doesn`t need any further addition. I love that this campaign doesn`t try to manipulate me by adding 'lifestyle scenes' or 'emotional promises'. This campaign fully stands on its own, shining and impressing with what it is: pure luxury. The world`s most beautiful women wearing stunning gowns being shot by one of the best fashion photographers of our time. Once again, Roberto Cavalli shows his true understanding of beauty and it`s perfect staging by picking only the best of everything, reminding us that luxury is not just in the opulent surface but runs deep.

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