Prada Draws the Holidays by Hand

Prada steps into a hand-drawn world for Holiday 2026, pairing cinematic photography with whimsical illustration in a celebration of craft, imagination and storytelling.

Prada Draws the Holidays by Hand
Louis Parks

There is something deliberately analogue about Prada’s Holiday 2026 campaign.

Titled Drawing Prada: Animated by Hand, the campaign turns away from slick digital perfection in favour of hand-drawn illustration, using the technique to create a series of wintertime fantasies that feel nostalgic, cinematic and unmistakably human.

Under the creative direction of Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons, the campaign brings together Chen Haoyu, Luther Ford, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Maya Hawke and Sadie Sink, placing each of them within illustrated worlds where real-life action meets the impossible.

Prada

The campaign’s starting point is storytelling itself, specifically the way stories are passed between generations.

Prada uses hand-drawn animation not simply as a visual effect, but as the centre of the idea. Led by animator John Pomeroy, the illustrated environments surround the cast with storybook winter scenes and whimsical animal characters, creating something that sits somewhere between an old Hollywood fantasy and a traditional fable.

Photography by Glen Luchford works in harmony with the illustrations, with lighting and perspective carefully aligned to the animated surroundings. The result is a deliberate interplay between reality and drawing, contemporary faces and imaginary worlds.

Prada

The cast brings together performers from across film, television, theatre and music.

Chinese singer and actor Chen Haoyu, also known as Amy Chen, appears alongside British actor Luther Ford, who first drew international attention playing a young Prince Harry in The Crown. American actor Kelvin Harrison Jr., whose recent work includes The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, joins Maya Hawke and Sadie Sink, both familiar faces from Stranger Things.

Hawke, who also works as a singer-songwriter, released her fourth studio album, Maitreya Corso, in 2026, while Sink expanded her stage career with a West End debut in Romeo and Juliet the same year.

Prada

Together, they become contemporary figures dropped into something more timeless.

That contrast is central to the campaign.

Prada sees storytelling as an expression of human feeling, experience and emotional connection, and the decision to execute the illustrated environments entirely by hand reinforces that idea. In a world increasingly shaped by digital imagery, the visible presence of craft becomes part of the message.

The fantasy may be impossible, but the process behind it is deliberately tangible.

Prada

By combining photography, animation and hand-drawn illustration, Prada Holiday 2026 turns the familiar language of the festive campaign into something more dreamlike: a series of contemporary fables shaped not by seamless technology, but by the imperfect, imaginative touch of the human hand.

For more stories of fashion from around the region and beyond, visit YUNG’s dedicated archives and follow us on Instagram.