Since its conception in 2007, the Prada Galleria Bag has become one of the brand’s most recognisable accessories.
Its soft surface, juxtaposed with its sleek structure, makes it the ideal companion for the modern woman. Named after the brand’s historic flagship boutique, opened by Mario Prada in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in 1913, the Galleria is reinvented each season with endless updates and twists on the classic design.
For this season, the Prada Galleria has a new surface and shape, both inside and out. The Galleria Soft Grain features a classic lightness, while supple calfskin exteriors and nappa linings give the bag a fresh malleability. All metal hardware is gold-plated, and colours shift from the purest black to a palette of warm neutrals. Again plated in gold, micro-stud applications form an all-over treatment on the exterior. Like dots of light, they transform the surface, allying it to a language that is fundamentally Prada – studs are a form of decoration the brand has explored again and again throughout its fashion and accessories.
In an exploration of Prada’s leatherworking savoir-faire, something A&E Editor in Chief Lara Mansour Sawaya discovered a lot more of during a recent visit to the brand’s Italian factory, the Galleria is also proposed with alternating embellishments of three-dimensional floral blooms, all hand-worked, one by one, in fine leather. The planes of the bag allow flowers to erupt, either finely-coiled rosebuds or full-blown anemones, reimagined as graphic devices by Prada’s virtuoso craftspeople.
Connected intrinsically to Prada’s ready-to-wear collections, where foliate embellishments have had a presence across four decades, this decoration is both a hallmark of the brand and an expression of the superlative quality that characterises both the Made in Italy mark and the name Prada.
This season the Galleria bag is presented to the world via an exclusive campaign featuring Scarlett Johansson. The actress is pictured in New York City in images captured by director Jonathan Glazer. The still and moving images showcase Johansson as an actor, honing her art – repeating phrases with different feelings and meanings, she showcases the infinite self-transformation that defines an actor’s skill.
As Johansson exits the studio, we see the image leap from screen to reality where the intimacy of the act of performing is able to generate contrasts with a panoramic normality of everyday life. The instrument of Johansson’s everyday is the Prada Galleria, seen here as a tool of life rather than a product, a part of an everyday wardrobe. As with Johansson, its persona can transform; as with acting, it is a symbol of excellence in craft. Here, the Prada Galleria is showcased, in motion, as a fundamental facet of a woman’s reality.
The Prada Galleria is available at Prada stores globally.
