The way big fashion names have evolved into curators of culture is no random phenomenon. The backbone of our image culture today comes derived — in a big way — from how style was conceived and communicated over various mediums, and will always be influenced by how creative directors shape our taste with their own interpretation of culture. It is in this cyclical manner that fashion will always remain a collective effort of creativity, and never a sole product of one brain.

With the desensitisation of nuance that comes from today’s overwhelming load of information online, it has become imperative for fashion houses again to double down on the quality and impact that comes with the stories they tell, if they want to reach their audience with the same effect pre-Internet.

Prada’s recent FW26 campaign, titled Simple Stories, is reminder that including an auteur that operates outside of fashion’s commercial circus can expand your creative horizons in ways you’d never expect to. Directed by Barry Jenkins, who has also made Moonlight (2016), Medicine for Melancholy (2008) and If Beale Street Could Talk (2018), this is only one of the many times film and fashion have under Prada’s watchful eye, created the best kind of chaos; find here our favourite films made for Prada by some of the biggest filmmakers of the now.

Simple Stories (2026), Barry Jenkins

The FW26 campaign taps on Barry Jenkins, who excels in creating lyrical visuals that easily resonate without the baggage of drama, to depict the simple stories of four individuals in seemingly everyday moments. Just as the series title suggests, the campaign lets in on wandering bodies and eyes of Chen Haoyu, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Hunter Schafer and Troye Sivan, showcasing not just the new collection in its worn form, but also in its lived one. A subtle and clever spotlight on the clothes without the overt act of selling.

Scarlett Johansson for the Prada Galleria Bag (2025), Yorgos Lanthimos

You might be familiar with Bugonia (2025), which stars the phenomenal Emma Stone as a CEO suspected of being an alien by two conspiracy theorists. That was also directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, who in this Prada Galleria campaign gets Scarlett Johansson working with another Scarlett Johansson, to seemingly create yet another Scarlett Johansson. A fun, off-kilter clip highlights the Greek filmmaker’s experimental leanings, promotes the traditional working woman’s bag as a product of wonder, adventure and mystery.

Castello Cavalcanti (2013), Wes Anderson

Even if you are not a film buff, you’d definitely have heard of Wes Anderson’s name. Released just a year before The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), this 8-minute short starring Jason Schwartzman as a 1950s racing driver — who crashes into a statue of Jesus Christ is a quirky bit of cinema takes the best of Anderson’s colour play and quite ingeniously touches on themes like death and afterlife. This is the third short film released by Prada Classics — a series of creative projects started in 2008 by Miuccia Prada with the intention of exploring and redefining the boundaries of fashion, design, art and architecture — no guesses why this is this editor’s favourite film of the lot.

THUNDER PERFECT MIND (2005), Ridley Scott

Premiered at the Berlin Film Festival to launch Prada’s new fragrance, THUNDER PERFECT MIND is a collaborative work of American film director Ridley Scott — who directed Alien (1979), Blade Runner (1982), Prometheus (2012) — and his daughter Jordan Scott — as specifically tasked by Miuccia Prada. In response to her desire to portray the complexities of being a woman, Jordan interpreted the almost 2000-year old poem “Thunder Perfect Mind” to explore the endless aspects of the female psyche. Shot in Berlin and featuring Daria Werbowy as the wife, the virgin, the mother, the daughter, the mistress, this cheeky film is one of Prada’s earlier cinema projects that emphasises Prada’s interest in exploring the creative possibilities of fashion and cinema.

Prada The Galleria with Scarlett Johannson (2024), Jonathan Glazer

Before Yorgos’s triple-Scarlett film, there was this Prada Galleria campaign by English director Jonathan Glazer that sees ScarJo on a soundstage, repeating dramatic lines from Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra. This specifically celebrates technique, in both the making of the Galleria, and the making of an actor; this simple black-and-white to colour film emphasises the importance of the human behind movie characters as the true irreplaceable motor that drives cinema, Scarlett Johansson’s constant reinvention of the self mirroring what Prada has been doing throughout its history. The director and actress had also previously worked together on the 2013 sci-fi art film Under the Skin.

PAST FORWARD (2016), David O. Russell

Directed by the David O. Russell — who is also behind American Hustle (2013), The Fighter (2010), and Silver Linings Playbook (2012) — this multi-platform, time-warping short film constructs a collage of scenarios, characters, costumes, genres and endings, repeating and morphing with no need of narrative logic. This “cinema poem”, surreal, futuristic and silent dreamscape challenges what is experience, memory and dream, echoing Prada’s continual inquisition of what is real and what is imagined. A cute piece of cinema that’s an easy watch, should you be able to overlook the complete lack of linearity.

Prada Galleria with Hunter Schafer (2021), Xavier Dolan

This fantastical short by arthouse feature filmmaker Xavier Dolan for the Prada Galleria pictures Hunter Schafer with the icon of the house — a steadfast companion that stays with her from the bedroom to a fashion shoot, and more day dreaming and living across the infinite dimensions possible between these two physical space. Short, sweet, but completely stylistic in anchoring the Galleria as a legacy silhouette for the house.

Once you are done with this story, click here to catch up with our June/July 2026 issue.