Frank Ocean is the new face of Prada “Programming Rhythms And Dancing Again”

A black Prada anorak was enough for Frank Ocean to steal the show at the 2019 Met Gala - whose theme, the "camp," seemed in stark contrast to the minimal and normcore choice of his outfit. Prada's jacket, which immediately became a cult object for the fans of the artist, had been paired with a black shirt and tie, following a trend - that of suit&tie - that Ocean himself has carried out for much of 2019, including business variants had launched the Cactus Plant Flea Market VaporMax in May. Frank Ocean's ability to create around himself a well defined aesthetic, and do so in what - by the standards of the 2010s - are really sporadic public appearances, tell of Ocean's ability to influence not only the world of music, but also the world of fashion. 

The new Prada campaign, shot by photographer David Sims, tries to return this evolution of Frank Ocean's aesthetic, through a pair of portraits where the singer is represented by a full-body side - wearing a coat, an oversized shirt and what appears to be a Texan tie - and a black-and-white portrait, in which stands a reworking of Prada's acronym: "Programming Rhythms And Dancing Again". According to the official communiqué, the reinterpretation of the brand name is the essence of the new campaign: "influenced by abstract ideas, thoughts, notions: they provoke, sometimes adding context, sometimes positing a contradiction, always sparking thought". All the protagonists of the campaign, in fact, were chosen for their ability to tell a story: that of Frank Ocean seems to meet perfectly the intentions of Prada, who has chosen to focus - like so many other fashion houses - on urban artists, the real protagonists of the past and the future decade, but in a different way: in the manner of Frank Ocean.