Prada FW26: The Extraordinary Hidden in the Ordinary
Barry Jenkins directs Chen Haoyu, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Hunter Schafer and Troye Sivan in Prada's most quietly cinematic campaign yet and the clothes have never felt more real.
There is a particular kind of courage in choosing simplicity. For their Fall-Winter 2026 campaign, Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons have done exactly that, and the result is one of the most quietly affecting things Prada has put out in years.
The campaign is called Simple Stories, and it does what it says. Directed by Barry Jenkins, the filmmaker behind Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk, it captures actors Chen Haoyu, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Hunter Schafer and Troye Sivan in moments of domestic intimacy and ordinary life. Still images and short films sit alongside each other, each one feeling less like a fashion campaign and more like a fragment of something larger, a glimpse into a personal world where the clothes exist as another character rather than the only point of the exercise.
Jenkins brings his instinct for the private and the unguarded to the project, and it shows. The images are intentionally quiet, reflective and real, with gestures that feel instinctive rather than directed. At times the subjects seem aware of the camera, at others entirely absorbed in their own moment. That tension, between knowing and unawares, between actuality and fantasy, is where the campaign lives and where it is most interesting.
Prada has always understood that fashion and cinema speak the same language. Simple Stories is another chapter in that ongoing conversation, and it is one of their most eloquent yet.
Credits:
Images courtesy of Prada
Words: Cable Writers
Prada.com
