Photo: Photography by Anne Collier with images by Oliver Hadlee Pearch
Is physical media dead? Prada doesn’t seem to think so.
For its spring 2026 campaign, featuring John Glacier, Levon Hawke, Nicholas Hoult, Damson Idris, Carey Mulligan, Hunter Schafer, and Liu Wen, Prada tapped visual artist Anne Collier to redefine fashion imagery in a digital age. Collier, known for her work utilizing rephotography (essentially creating still lifes out of existing images or objects), lent her distinct vision to these images. In them, photos of Prada’s muses in its latest collection, captured by Oliver Hadlee Pearch, are held in hands, some bare and some gloved. The effect is twofold: Suddenly the viewer is aware of their role as an onlooker, and the image in hand becomes something with life itself. Yes, it’s static in the moment, but where else might it go? Who else might show it to a friend or tape it onto their wall or glue it on a vision board?
From left: Photo: Photography by Anne Collier with images by Oliver Hadlee PearchPhoto: Photography by Anne Collier with images by Oliver Hadlee Pearch
From top: Photo: Photography by Anne Collier with images by Oliver Hadlee PearchPhoto: Photography by Anne Collier with images by Oliver Hadlee Pearch
From left: Photo: Photography by Anne Collier with images by Oliver Hadlee PearchPhoto: Photography by Anne Collier with images by Oliver Hadlee Pearch
From top: Photo: Photography by Anne Collier with images by Oliver Hadlee PearchPhoto: Photography by Anne Collier with images by Oliver Hadlee Pearch
“Like an additional observer, or a reflection of ourselves as onlookers, these images are observed, admired, perhaps desired — examining the mechanism of advertising as a medium,” the brand said in a statement.
For those of us born in the ’90s, when imagery was still analog, the feeling of holding a magazine or photo or drawing or something that felt real was our reality rather than a rarity. In my childhood bedroom, there are still hundreds of images from fashion spreads taped to every wall in a chaotic collage: a group of models, denim-clad and holding hands, jumping in the air; a girl in a sheer boho dress and hippie headband staring coolly ahead; a pop star in dark eye shadow and a crown teetering on her head while she’s holding a puppy. All of it felt as if it were mine to behold. This campaign does, too.
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