MAGICAL TRIP: For its holiday ad campaign, Prada invited a group of familiar faces on a winter trip across mountain-top snowscapes, which turns into an unexpected magical experience for the cast.
Prada ambassadors Maya Hawke, Damson Idris, Louis Partridge and Letitia Wright, all regulars in Prada ads, were portrayed by Glen Luchford on a car ride in vintage automobiles through snow-dotted hairpin turns surrounded by a white tree forest.
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They are joined by Chinese actor Li Xian, also a brand ambassador who fronts an official ad campaign for the first time here, after appearing in editorial images for the Prada Qixi 2025 collection earlier this year. The recipient of the Actor of the Year award at the China Television Directors Conference in 2024, Xian is best known for his roles in the 2019 hit drama series “Go Go Squid!” and for his most recent appearances in breakthrough shows “Flourished Peony” and “In the Name of Blossom.”
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Titled “A Winter’s Tale,” the campaign explores a “winter archetype,” according to the brand, which described trips to mountain peaks as “a universal experience, a story known by many — a coming home.”
The group of friends is portrayed in candid pictures as they look outside the car windows, while intent on driving or taking breaks in the middle of the forest. Each car features a holiday tree laying on its roof.
The cast sports apparel and accessories from the accompanying winter collection, which includes collarless loden wool blazer for men and cotton drill dresses with embellished shirt collars for women, as well as the new “Petit Sac Noir” evening bucket bag in Re-Nylon framed by a leather handle, among other items.
In a video flanking the imagery, the narrative is further explored as the group is depicted driving through the mountains and stopping for a break when suddenly the headlights and dashboard on a white car start lighting up, in anticipation of the unexpected ignition of fairy lights on all the surrounding trees. The video closes on aerial views of the lit up forest.
The concept “celebrates the holiday period as time of kinship and sharing, of stories, and of exceptional encounter. Of wonderment,” Prada said. Individual short movies dedicated to each protagonist in which talents share personal anecdotes and holiday memories will also be released as part of the campaign.
Prada is no stranger to whimsical holiday campaigns. Last year it explored the concept of a festive dinner party in which a starry cast — headlined by Hawke and Partridge, among others — was joined by the brand’s “Trick” robot, the playful charms carried around on bags or as keychains.
Over the years Prada has tapped actors including Wright, Willem Dafoe, Ethan Hawke, Dane DeHaan and Ezra Miller, as well as Julia Garner, Shira Haas, Hunter Schafer, Jeff Goldblum, Rami Malek and Vincent Cassel, among others.