Prada Unveils a Surrealist Second Act for Its Spring 2026 Campaign

Prada has made the surprise release of a second act to its Spring 2026 campaign, a pop- and dystopian-tinged collaboration with American artist Jordan Wolfson, known for thought-provoking work spanning animatronics, robotics, virtual reality, holography, and digital animation. It is exactly the kind of move that feels inevitable in retrospect: a house as intellectually restless as Prada refusing to let a single campaign cycle tell the whole story.

Titled "I, I, I, I AM… PRADA," the campaign was shot by photographer Oliver Hadlee Pearch under the creative direction of Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons, with artwork by Jordan Wolfson. The cast reprises that of Act One, headlined by actors Levon Hawke, Damson Idris, and Hunter Schafer, alongside Nicholas Hoult and Carey Mulligan, as well as musician John Glacier and model Liu Wen.

In line with Wolfson's body of work, his collaboration with Prada invents unnamed, unreal, and dreamlike creatures, defined by complex visual imaging, that interact with the campaign cast in both stills and video. The artist introduces two types of characters that pose and gesture alongside the models: the first appears like a bodysuit formed of armadillo scales; the second like a birdman with a beak. Both creations glisten in computer-molded leather that changes color to suit each model's outfit, silver-green for grey, teal for pink, black for black.

In one frame, Nicholas Hoult sits on a swivel chair half-turned to camera with a giant black bird cross-legged to his back. In another, model Liu Wen lies on the floor in moss-green gloves while a bodysuit companion bicycle-kicks beside her. The 80-second video ends with Carey Mulligan lounging, a Bonnie bag just within reach, as a giant pink bird in thigh-high leather boots places its hands first on her shoulders, then on her head.

The campaign also marks Wolfson's first return to video as a medium since his work Riverboat Song (2017-18). In the short film, the cast chants a mantra: "I, I, I, I am…," left intentionally incomplete. Prada said in a statement that "Wolfson's intervention in the spring 2026 campaign opens ceaseless possibilities, multiplicities of identity and being, of what Prada can be, how it can be perceived, and re-perceived, through constantly questioned conventions of an advertising campaign."

The first act of the campaign, released last January, also featured an artist collaboration, with American photographer Anne Collier. Titled "Image of an Image," it functioned as a meta-conversation on the role and relevance of advertising, with Collier photographing hands holding up collection shots against a zingy orange backdrop. The second act swings in the opposite direction: where Collier's work was coolly self-referential, Wolfson's is visceral, teetering on the uncanny.

There is a quiet question of balance in yielding so fully to the artist's vision; the fashion itself occasionally recedes into the background. While this may be the point, it subtly shifts the campaign from fashion communication to cultural commentary. For Prada, that tension has always been the whole point.