The Women Who Wear Prada

KUOTH WIEL, FREIDA PINTO, AND ALLISON WILLIAMS IN PAST FORWARD.

The subjective experience of the modern woman is comprised of an intersection of her varying identities, dreams, and histories—an experience that Miuccia Prada has always embraced in her women’s collections. In 2012, she told Interview, “I would say there is no Prada woman. I’m interested in women in general.” 

It is that intersection between a woman’s future and past, fantasy and reality that sparked an imaginative collaboration between the Italian designer and the film director and writer known for The Fighter and Silver Linings Playbook, David O. Russell. Multi-platform film project Past Forward conveys an unconventional narrative that blurs the line between three female characters’ real lives and dreams, infusing their desires and nightmares into one 1930s-inspired short film.  

Starring Allison Williams, Freida Pinto, Kuoth Wiel, John Krasinski, Jack Huston, Sinqua Walls, Paula Patton, Connie Britton, and Sacha Baron Cohen, and launched today on Prada’s website,  Past Forward is an undertaking of the woman’s experiences of beauty, love, drama, and ambition. “Here was the opportunity to make a journey of cinema guided by layers of movie memories, life images and emotions, with no aim except to create art—as if it were a painting or a sculpture—free from normal narrative or audience expectations,” says Russell. “The cast and I worked simply for the joy of making art.” 

The experimental narration Russell leaves Past Forward’s viewers with is that same state of the Prada woman whom Miuccia Prada said cannot be defined. “What is magical and strange about cinema is also magical and strange about life,” Russell continues. “Life can be ordinary day to day, go to work, come home, etcetera, and yet at the same time it can turn strange, unexpected, surprising, suspenseful. Emotions, histories, memories, the past living in the future, the future living in the past.” 

FOR MORE ON PAST FORWARD, VISIT PRADA’S WEBSITE.