The Glass Age: Prada’s iconic Galleria reinvents itself through colour

Since its launch on the market in 2007, it has become an archetype of the fashion house, a neoclassic.

4 photos

With its elegant and pragmatic spirit, the Galleria oscillates between formality and functionality. It reflects a modern design ethos by combining history and contemporaneity and has become a benchmark of artisanal heritage. It is also considered a hallmark of the fashion house’s identity in the 21st century and is named after the location of Prada‘s flagship store in Milan: the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II.

It was first unveiled in Saffiano leather, a material patented by Mario Prada that remains a leitmotif of the brand to this day. It is created through an intricate hot-pressing process where the raw edges are smoothed and painted by hand. The Galleria bag references the classic styles of the past through sober, timeless lines and the framed shapes of the 1940s. Inside, it conceals three parallel compartments: two with zips and one hidden at the bottom, while the outer front features a Prada triangle, a seal of quality and a measure of perfection.

Now, the surface of the Galleria has been infinitely reimagined in a vast array of colours and a range of leathers – some lushly embellished and embroidered, others defined simply with a band of stitching or a canvas for exploration through graphic shapes and bold contrasting tones. The Spring/Summer 2023 campaign features Scarlett Johansson and Venezuelan-American artist Alex Da Corte, who draws inspiration from Pop-Art and Surrealism to explore a fantastical art world that transposes one of Prada‘s most iconic items.