Far beyond the realm of fashion photography, this collaboration of Prada with Rem Koolhaas’s AMO OMA and Jeroen Koolhaas is a cultural project, a palimpsest of photography, graphics and text revealing a topography of the socio-political context of the American Dream, within a story about fashion.

A delightful collaboration indeed. We all know that Prada loves architecture and in particular Rem Koolhaas; and we all know of Rem’s fascination with the media. So, maybe, this lookbook did not entirely come out of the blue after all! It is the most recent of the Real Fantasies Prada lookbook series, a project by Rem Koolhaas – AMO OMA featuring artworks by Jeroen Koolhaas – just remember the atmospheric colours of the Spring Summer 2008 one.
This time Jeroen Koolhaas plays with the 50’s and 60’s pop art collages; he remembers the work of Richard Hamilton and the architectural collages of Rem Koolhaas – his book ‘Content’ among others. The artworks’ retro atmosphere fits perfectly the Prada Spring Summer 2012 collection and its exploitation of the 50’s aesthetics. Yet, unlike the Prada campaign photos for this season by Steven Meisel, the lookbook does not focus on the glossiness and the exaggerated glamour of 50’s. Jeroen Koolhaas’s glorification of post-war suberbia glamour is a palimpsest of symbols and retro icons with a slight underlying irony that reveals the systemic dysfunction of the era’s consumerist utopia.

PRODUCTION / ART DIRECTION: AMO / Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli, Fausto Fantinuoli. ARTWORK: Jeroen Koolhaas, Lok Jansen. PHOTOGRAPHY: Phil Meech. VIDEO DIRECTION: James Lima. MUSIC: Frédéric Sanchez. EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Max Brun – Hi ! Production. EDITING: Brian Vincent Durkin.