What if the magic of the holidays, instead of taking shape on a screen, were born from a sheet of paper and a pencil? For the Holiday 2026 campaign, Prada steps away for a moment from the perfection of digital images and turns to hand drawing, transforming Christmas into a small animated universe where real and imaginary characters meet.
With Drawing Prada, the Milanese maison chooses traditional animation to tell the magic of the holidays through a universe of imaginary characters and settings. The Holiday 2026 campaign, signed by creative directors Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons, combines photography and hand drawing, creating a dialogue between reality and fantasy.
At a time when images are generated, edited and perfected through digital tools, choosing hand drawing also means recognizing the value of time, imperfection and craftsmanship. Every line retains something of the gesture that produced it, every character takes shape through a process made of choices, attempts and details. Paper thus becomes a space of freedom, where imagination does not necessarily have to adhere to reality, but can reinvent it.
Interpreting this world are the Ambassadors Chen Haoyu, Maya Hawke, Sadie Sink and Kelvin Harrison Jr., together with Luther Ford. The photographs are signed by Glen Luchford, while the animation direction is entrusted to John Pomeroy, alongside the campaign’s creative direction by Ferdinando Verderi. Pomeroy is a veteran American animator who began his career at Disney in 1973. Over the years he worked on classics such as The Secret of NIMH, An American Tail and The Land Before Time, before returning to Disney as animation supervisor on Pocahontas and Fantasia 2000
More than a simple festive setting, Drawing Prada is a visual experiment that puts craftsmanship back at the center and highlights drawing’s ability to build stories. The choice of hand-made animation gives the campaign a narrative and cinematic dimension, in which imagination meets the maison’s contemporary identity.
