Award-winning author Candice Carty-Williams has announced that she has written the forthcoming Prada 2020 holiday campaign.
The Queenie author, who was the first black writer to win book of the year at the British Book Awards earlier this year, wrote on Twitter that she was “very excited” and “genuinely surprised” to share the news.
Photographed by Steven Meisel, the black and white images shared online are based on a story called ‘A Stranger Calls’ written by the author.
Shot at the picturesque Villa Gnutti in Italy’s Brescia – made famous by a 1981 Helmut Newton shoot – the cast includes Freja Beha, Maty Fall, Mao Xiaoxing and Rudolfs Valbergs.
According to the luxury brand, the campaign presents “a synthesis of classicism and futurism”, with the new Prada Cleo handbag, debuted in the Prada Multiple Views SS21 show and featured in the spring/sumer 2021 womenswear collection a “focal point”.
The Prada Galleria handbag, the Vanity compact-bags,Saffiano and nylon travel accessories and men’s jewellery also feature.
“In the tradition of film noir, the campaign reconnects with early Prada moments pioneering the aesthetics of cinematic drama,” a press release claims.
“Jump shots from an imaginary film offer a sense of tension, sometimes of contradiction,” it adds.
The campaign and the accessories featured aim to explore “emotion, intrigue, attraction and, ultimately desire."
Queenie is the debut novel published by Carty-Williams and concerns female black identity and sexual politics in contemporary Britain.
The Sunday Times bestseller, which was also shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award and longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, was described as “a novel of our time, filled with wit, wisdom and urgency" by Book of the Year judge Stig Abell.
In February 2019, Prada launched a diversity council headed by film director Ava DuVernay and artist Theaster Gates.
The initiative aimed to “elevate voices of colour within the company and the fashion industry at large“.
And, later that year, it became the first luxury brand to sign a sustainability deal, leading to the launch of its first 100 per cent upcycled collection courtesy of Prada subsidiary Miu Miu last month.
The campaign preview launched on prada.com and Prada social media channels on 2 November.
According to Prada, “the narrative will continue to develop online through unexpected layers”, with further footage expected to be released soon.
