How Ottessa Moshfegh and Carey Mulligan Redefine the Prada Woman
words MATTIA MARCASSA BARBIERI
Prada has long been synonymous with storytelling, crafting narratives beyond fabric and silhouette. With its Spring/Summer 2025 campaign, the house once again pushes the boundaries of fashion as a narrative device. Titled Ten Protagonists, this season’s campaign transcends traditional advertising, merging literature with visual storytelling in an unprecedented collaboration between fashion and fiction.


At the heart of this campaign stands Carey Mulligan, captured in a series of striking portraits by the legendary Steven Meisel. But these images are not merely static representations; they serve as portals into the lives of ten fictional women. In a bold and intellectually charged move, Prada enlisted the acclaimed American author Ottessa Moshfegh to create a collection of short stories inspired by these campaign images. Each photograph becomes a doorway into the psyche of a unique, imagined woman—an extension of the Prada persona.

Moshfegh, known for her deeply psychological and often unsettling portrayals of women, injects an unfiltered literary sensibility into the project. Her protagonists, like those in My Year of Rest and Relaxation and Eileen, exist in worlds laced with contradiction elegance intertwined with unease, restraint battling against rebellion. Through Moshfegh’s prose, these women are given names, desires, secrets, and imperfections. They become more than muses; they are forces of their own making.

In an era where the fashion campaign often feels like a fleeting moment in an algorithm-driven landscape, Ten Protagonists challenges the ephemerality of modern imagery. By incorporating a literary dimension, Prada extends the lifespan of its campaign, urging audiences to engage beyond the visual—to read, to imagine, and to connect. This approach builds on Prada’s ongoing exploration of unconventional storytelling, following last season’s Miranda July hotline, and reaffirms the brand’s commitment to positioning fashion as a cultural force. The limited-edition Prada publication featuring Moshfegh’s ten stories, accompanied by Meisel’s hauntingly elegant imagery, serves as both an art object and a manifesto. It argues that fashion can—and should—aspire to more than aesthetic seduction. It can be intellectual. It can be introspective. It can be literature.


Ultimately, Ten Protagonists does not just present clothing; it presents characters. Prada’s Spring/Summer 2025 campaign is not about selling a look but about inviting us into the lives of women we may never meet but will never forget. And in the hands of Ottessa Moshfegh, these women are anything but ordinary.