Scarlett Johansson and Alex Da Corte Transform Prada Summer 2023 Galleria Bag Campaign AOC Fashion

Prada CEO Andrea Guerra was smiling last week, flying high on the wings of Prada’s first 1 billion euros revenue quarter in history. “The brand is agile with drops and novelties but also a patient developer of iconic products that are paying off well,” Guerra said in a press announcement.

A prime example of Prada’s iconic products is the Galleria bag, designed and produced in 2007, and named for Miuccia Prada’s grandfather’s first shop in Milan’s Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II.

The Galleria is beloved because of its signature Saffiano leather. Defined by its loosely crosshatched texture, Saffiano is the product of a patented, hot-pressing process that renders the calf leather scratch- and water-resistant and ready for a long and properous life.

The importance of reimagination is a key component to success in today's fast-changing, visually-dominated global fashion culture. This concept lies at the heart of Prada’s Summer 2023 ‘The Glass Age’ Campaign celebrating Prada’s iconic Galleria handbag.

Hollywood starlet Scarlett Johansson and Venezuelan-American conceptual artist Alex Da Corte collaborate on an unconventional examination of how the Galleria uses the power of color and modern art to connect us to Johansson as both herself and the bag in full emotional color. The duo is joined by designers Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons who reimagined the Galleria in limited edition colorways with creative direction by Ferdinando Verderu and art direction plus photography by Alex Da Corte [link]./ Hair by Jimmy Paul; makeup by Frankie Boyd; set design by Mary Howard

The campaign puts the human imagination's transformative power center stage. Understanding the literal concept of the glass age and Prada’s factory in Scandicci, outside of Florence, Italy helps us to fully understand and appreciate the campaign itself.

When we think of a leather factory, this white, modern glass building is not a typical vision even juxtaposed against new leather factories for Louis Vuitton or Hermes, which retain an old-world, more organic atmosphere and architecture.

Inspired by doctors’ bags of the 1950s, the Galleria wasn’t ever a fashionable ‘it’ bag. Rather, Galleria was born with substance and purpose, a practical bag for no-nonsence women on the move with calendar-filled days.

Like the brutalist architecture conceived across Europe in the 1950s, the Galleria was designed as a support system and not an amusing handbag or status symbol.