Prada ‘Galleria’ bag unites the house’s past and present – now in colourful new iterations

Inspired by Milan’s famed shopping arcade, the Prada ‘Galleria’ was launched in 2007. For A/W 2023, colourful new versions are inspired by artist Alex Da Corte, who teamed up with the brand for a pop art-inspired campaign

Bag, £5,550, by Prada

(Image credit: Photography by Neil Godwin at Future Studios for Wallpaper*)

By Jack Moss

published 17 September 2023

Contributions from
Neil Godwin - Photography

in Features

The grand, domed interior of Milan’s 19th-century shopping arcade Galleria Vittoria Emanuele II has long provided the spiritual home of Italian fashion house Prada, where eponymous founder Mario Prada opened his first store in 1913. Over a century on, in 2007, Miuccia Prada – Mario’s youngest granddaughter and current co-creative director alongside Raf Simons – introduced the ‘Galleria’ handbag, a ladylike ode to the arcade crafted from the house’s signature wax-treated saffiano leather. Deemed by the house a ‘neo-classic’ for its pared-back design with nods to vintage medicine bags from the 1950s, it has since become one of Prada’s most recognisable exports – endlessly riffed upon in a panoply of sizes, colours and textures.

For A/W 2023, an array of colourful new styles have been introduced, reflecting the work of Venezuelan-American contemporary artist Alex Da Corte, who imagined the accompanying campaign starring Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson.

In it, she traverses a colour-soaked terrain, featuring graphic moments of pop art-inspired hues and geometric motifs which are reflected on the bags themselves. In dual-colour designs or featuring chevrons, squares or curves of contrasting shades, the collectable special-edition designs add to the ‘Galleria’s ever-expanding catalogue of iterations, each one completed with the Prada triangle – a leitmotif of the house since its founding, melding past and present as one.

Watch the film below.

A version of this article appears in the October 2023 Style Issue of Wallpaper*, on sale now available in print, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

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Jack Moss is the Fashion Features Editor at Wallpaper*, joining the team in 2022. Having previously been the digital features editor at AnOther and digital editor at 10 and 10 Men magazines, he has also contributed to titles including i-D, Dazed, 10 Magazine, Mr Porter’s The Journal and more, while also featuring in Dazed: 32 Years Confused: The Covers, published by Rizzoli. He is particularly interested in the moments when fashion intersects with other creative disciplines – notably art and design – as well as championing a new generation of international talent and reporting from international fashion weeks. Across his career, he has interviewed the fashion industry’s leading figures, including Rick Owens, Pieter Mulier, Jonathan Anderson, Grace Wales Bonner, Christian Lacroix, Kate Moss and Manolo Blahnik.

With contributions from

Neil Godwin - Photography