Prada's 2026 Holiday Campaign Revives Hand-Drawn Animation
Prada unveils its Holiday 2026 campaign, 'Drawing Prada: Animated by Hand,' a whimsical winter fairytale blending live-action photography with traditional hand-drawn animation, featuring a star-studded cast and led by legendary animator John Pomeroy.
Prada's 2026 holiday campaign transforms festive narratives into hand-drawn winter wonderlands blending live-action photography with traditional animation. Titled Drawing Prada: Animated by Hand, the project positions human craftsmanship as a deliberate contrast to the increasing prevalence of CGI and AI-generated imagery in fashion visuals.
The campaign merges cinematic photography with illustrated scenery to create surreal compositions. It shows Prada's winter collection, featuring technical outerwear, candy-colored stripes, and occasion-ready knitwear. The brand's holiday story has an old-school hand behind it, with hand-drawn elements turning winter scenes into fairy tales.
Creative Leadership and Production
Legendary animator John Pomeroy leads the hand-drawn animation team. Pomeroy, known for his work on films like Pocahontas, Fantasia 2000, Thumbelina, and The Land Before Time, brings decades of studio experience to the project. Creative directors Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons oversaw the campaign, which emphasizes craftsmanship and storytelling across generations.
Pomeroy states that animation speaks into stories like live action can't and that hand-drawn animation shows the value of the human touch. The project celebrates the art of illustration and explores the importance of human creativity itself.
Star-Studded Cast and Production Details
The campaign features a cast of young actors in hand-drawn winter fantasy scenes. Sadie Sink, Maya Hawke, Chen Haoyu, Luther Ford, and Kelvin Harrison Jr. appear in live-action scenes filmed under the lighting of British photographer and filmmaker Glen Luchford, who has collaborated with Prada since the 1990s.
Each frame of the animation was drawn by hand. This careful frame-by-frame process included character movements like launching a snowball into Kelvin Harrison Jr.'s nylon backpack. Pomeroy worked from the inside out, building character motivations around Prada items, such as mice enchanted by polka-dot shoes or a Snow Lynx desiring an Avoir handbag. A fox is illustrated following Maya Hawke.
Artistic Vision and Craftsmanship
The integration of kinetic, tactile sketching captures the magic of storytelling intrinsic to the season. Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons reimagined foundational items like the skirt for their recent Milan Fashion Week show, and this campaign continues that focus on craft through a different medium. Glen Luchford's photography, famed for its high gloss, provided the lighting and perspective that complemented the hand-drawn scenes.
The campaign is a short film full of whimsy. It emphasizes human expression and the value of the human touch in creation, offering a nostalgic, human-centered alternative in contemporary fashion storytelling.
