What do you get when you merge a cult Spanish director an Italian fashion brand? A Prada campaign. Or at least its latest menswear one – the fresh chapter of its 365 series, starring distinctive director Pedro Almodóvar and photographed by Willy Vanderperre. Transitioning from director to protagonist, the 30-second film – titled Auteur – captures Almodóvar drawing on past acting experience to play a version of himself, all the while being dressed in Prada’s AW17 menswear collection.
Each widescreen shot making up the campaign brings with it a different implied narrative. In one shot you see Almodóvar apparently caught off guard – as if perhaps not used to being on this side of the camera.
With the backdrop the domestic setting of the Prada AW17 showspace, the campaign is the latest in a long series of menswear ads to feature characters from the world of cinema – although most commonly they are actors, not directors. Here, there’s a blurred boundary between the “Almodóvariano” world created in his films and that of Prada; they merge together in honour of an artistic vision. And evidently, it works.