Celebrating Prada’s Galleria Bag
The visceral appeal of fashion extends far beyond the runway, and luxury brands often explore this by blurring the lines between design and media. As such, a staple Prada bag captured on film becomes not only a campaign told through story, but a work of art in and of itself.
Introduced in 2007 and named for Prada’s first historic store in Milan, the Galleria bag is at once rooted in classic luxury and firmly planted in modern fashion. To celebrate the trademark design, Prada has produced a series of short films, The Postman Dreams, written and directed by Autumn de Wilde. “The Prada world that I built is a dreamscape of childhood desires mixed with adult fantasies,” said de Wilde. “The best part of fashion is the childlike obsession with beauty, it retains an innocence, and that’s what makes me feel inspired to create.” The filmmaker was given free rein to veer from a more traditional advertisement, allowing her to experiment with her art, playing with elements of surrealism and silent film.
The first three shorts, released Tuesday, depict a colourful world with ample comedy and quirk; filmed in Los Angeles and set to the music of the Blasting Company, The Postman Dreams inserts Prada into a cheeky realm of obsession and beauty. The series begins with “The Postman”, in which an ordinary mail carrier escapes his bland job by finding solace in daydreams. In “The Makeout”, the Prada Sound bag acts as a metaphor for desire as two lovebirds chase each other up a winding staircase. “The Battlefield” sees the Galleria sliced in half and used as the grounds for a child’s imaginary war, the bag’s immaculate interior on rare up-close display. Each story is sewn together by the common thread of the postman, a playful hero whose use of fantasy demonstrates our universal adoration for goods, such as Prada’s, of the highest quality.
