Tuvalu

During the Fall/Winter 2022 menswear shows, one invite in particular stood out: Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons’ white, invitation-adorned pyjamas, announcing the first physical show since their creative partnership at Prada began in April 2020. The elegantly understated, yet impactful design for Prada FW 2022 Menswear Invitation was conceived by London-based practice Zak Group – whose previous clients include Virgil Abloh and Paco Rabanne –  and was awarded a Wood Pencil at the 2022 D&AD Awards.

The cotton men’s pyjamas and their sleek accompanying packaging showcase a bold, contemporary typeface, specially designed by Zak Group for the purpose, and incorporate illustrations by Simons’ longtime collaborator, the Belgian artist Peter De Potter. Here, designer Asel Tambay –  who worked alongside Art Director and Zak Group Creative Director Zak Kyes, fellow Designer Marta Úrbez and Type Director Chi-Long Trieu on the project —  and Zak Group’s Design Operations Manager Belle Place, discuss the concept behind the invitation and the process of open collaboration that informed it, as well as the surprisingly simple key to creating a viral design.

Prada approached Zak Group with what Tambay describes as a “very open brief”.“Until last year, the house had been following the same template for their invitations, using a traditional serif typeface or the brand typeface. They wanted to break out of this language, and so they approached us,” she says –  which is where Miuccia Prada’s famed curiosity and collaborative spirit came into play. “We had a lot of room to share and implement our ideas, and, through a back-and-forth process of collaboration, to build this new, modern language for the menswear show campaign together – including the physical invitation.” 

Interestingly, Prada and Simons avoided sharing the Menswear FW 2022 collection with the design practice in advance, instead providing them with subtle cues as to its theme: illustrations by De Potter and plans for the industrial, space-age-inspired set design, conceived by AMO. “It was very important to Mrs Prada and Raf Simons that we didn't take the theme literally. They wanted to avoid anything that felt contrived, while still being very concept-driven,” says Place. Tambay agrees: “From the beginning, they almost approached the invitation as its own thing, which allowed us more creative space.”

When working with a fashion house as established as Prada, Tambay says it is essential, as an agency, to establish the essence of the brand. “And not necessarily just in terms of their visual language,” she expands, “but also what they stand for and how they present themselves.” In this way, she explains, you can create something new and fresh that simultaneously bridges the brand’s past with its present through intelligent design. 

This was how Zak Group’s art direction team, alongside Type Director Chi-Long Trieu, came up with the new typeface for the invitation and campaign. “We developed a typeface that doesn't share any formal qualities with anything Prada has used before,” says Tambay. “It's a condensed grotesque that has industrial details, as well as quite aired-out spacing and newly imagined proportions that relate to the elegance and integrity that Prada has as a brand. It fits with the Prada look in a new, modern way.”

It was a desire to fuse tradition and modernity that resulted in the joint decision that the physical invitation should take the form of a pair of white cotton mens’ pyjamas – a longstanding Prada style – art directed by Zak Group to lend a subtle contemporary edge. The invitation was printed, in the aforementioned typeface, in black on the pyjamas’ chest, just below the Prada logo. The first “A” was replaced by an illustration by Peter De Potter (“His illustrations embodied the modernity we wanted to convey,” says Tambay). 

“The approach was to create something that felt classic but fresh – so everything from the packaging to the pyjamas is all white. The packaging took the form of a traditional Prada box with white tissue paper-wrapping, secured with a white Prada sticker. Then inside you find these modern-looking Prada pyjamas,” the designer expands on the concept behind the design. “The idea was that the pyjamas would be sent to guests at their hotel rooms on arrival in Milan or to their homes if they were abroad.”

Inevitably, the selfie-friendly invitation whipped up a social media frenzy, with one show attendee even snapped sporting the pyjamas at the Milan presentation. But, in line with Prada’s savvy but distinctly ungimmicky approach to branding and publicity, the desire to create a shareable design never threatened the integrity of the design process itself. “As a house, they have so much heritage and tradition, but they're always reinventing themselves in the slightest ways,” notes Tambay.

“I think what was important was that the invitation left an impression and would gain traction, but that it wasn’t overly complex,” says Place. “Ultimately, the pyjamas are a beautiful and non-flashy object that still contains a lot of the house codes.” And indeed, the invitation’s success bears testimony to the fact that it is often the most understated yet expertly executed designs that are best placed to, in Tambay’s words, “take on a life of their own”.