With films like “A Therapy” by Roman Polanski and “Castello Cavalcanti” by Wes Anderson, it’s clear that Prada has a deep love for cinema. Now, the brand is back with a new series of film by Cali-based director Autumn de Wilde.
De Wilde has an ability to capture intimate portraits of characters, and to truthfully document the cultural zeitgeist. Her most well known work has come from the music industry; portraits of Elliott Smith and music videos for Rilo Kiley are among some of her most successful pieces. She has combined elements of comedy and surrealism in this recent project, and has chosen to use subtitles instead of having the characters speak. Unlike most fashion films; the aim of “The Postman Diaries” was not to be a traditional product commercial.
Speaking to Style.com, she explains her choice of characters: “A postman visits hundreds of lives for 10 seconds at a time when they deliver the mail. I loved the idea of our hero visiting so many different worlds every day and dreaming up fantastic lives for the people he encounters.” Classic film icons like the Marx Brothers and Charlie Chaplin inspired the postman character.
Prada approached De Wilde to create five shorts in honor of the brand’s signature bag, the Galleria. Three of the films were debuted on thepostmandreams.prada.com on Tuesday. Infusing surreal, ironic and sophisticated cinematography (slightly Wes Anderson’esque), with music by LA-based nouveau gypsy band The Blasting Company, De Wilde wrote the script for all three: The Postman, The Makeout, and The Battlefield.
De Wilde’s clever directing style and eclectic aesthetic matches Prada’s strong identity, and she has managed to convincingly tell us a story of how a bag, should always be more that just an accessory, and how we should all add some magic to our life’s with a Galleria bag.
Watch the first film here!