’Prada Archive 1998-2002’: inside the new book

‘I hear all the time, from art director friends, that [these are] the campaigns they see most frequently on moodboards,’ says Norbert Schoerner, relaying the legacy of his work with Prada. ‘It’s a great compliment, to have had that sort of impact on photography, but by no means could we have anticipated that 20 years later [the campaigns] would have such a ubiquitous presence in visual culture.’ Recently brought together in a slick, ring-binder format designed with Jonny Lu Studio, new monograph Norbert Schoerner Prada Archive 1998-2002 is published by cult bookseller IDEA and foregrounds the German photographer’s seminal images of Angela Lindvall, Freddy Drabble, Mateo Renoir and David Annand.

‘Norbert Schoerner Prada Archive: 1998-2002’ by IDEA Books

Replacing the cinematic romance of Glen Luchford’s campaigns for the house, made between 1996 and 1998 and starring Amber Valletta, Willem Dafoe and Joaquin Phoenix (previously also the focus of an earlier IDEA title), Schoerner’s pictures arrived in tandem with the new millennium, employing a sharper, more clinical-leaning aesthetic that spoke to the ‘ugly chic’ dynamic of Prada’s sartorial output. Sleek without appearing overly glossy, and detail-orientated in a manner that matched the design choices of Miuccia Prada (the highly specific contortions of the body, for example, or the dirt painted onto a hand), over four years Schoerner established a clean, hyperreal visual language that additionally inaugurated Prada Sport.

‘It’s quite intense – you don’t do anything else, you only work for Prada – but they are incredibly collaborative,’ Schoerner continues, reflecting on the relationship. ‘There wasn’t an agency in-between, so you’re working with Miuccia and another couple of people directly. This was pre-internet too so things were analogue, we didn’t really work with moodboards but references. We had the time to develop concepts with test shoots and through careful research, which could be anything from images of environments to movies we’d seen and then, as strange as it sounds, really just a stream of consciousness.’

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Schoerner was first invited to make a book a decade ago by someone else, but the timing wasn’t favourable; when conversations with IDEA began, something clicked. ‘The book then happened really quickly, it took about five months. For certain ideas it’s good to have momentum and just a really immersive, creative approach,’ he notes, acknowledging the contrast with his 2022 Fukushima project, The Nature of Nature (six years in the making). ‘Without overthinking it, this was the perfect time, and the perfect team – I really respect IDEA and love their approach.’

Finding a creative partner in Jonny Lu Studio was similarly important, he shares, having been keen from the start to bring in someone able to instigate ‘a new level of objectivity. Jonny and his team did an amazing job; their contribution is immense. They came at the images in a completely different way, remixing and re-appropriating. We cropped a lot.’

Immediately popular on their initial release, Schoerner’s Prada campaigns helped engineer a new aesthetic that informed visuals across the wider fashion industry, and the photographer’s own experiences with the house were especially instrumental in his practice he says. ‘Not just aesthetically or technically, but you’re in the most intense, creative and fulfilling bootcamp, and because of the workflow and need for the seasonal change of storyline and new perspective, we invented a process and methodology – that’s an incredible privilege,’ he notes. ‘It had a huge impact on me.’

Now, more than two decades on and with the new book and multiple social media accounts invested in the pictures, the photographer’s affection for the work remains tied up with an editor’s perspective. ‘I’m quite brutal; for example, in the new book we’re using less than a third of the images shot,’ he explains. ‘But it’s difficult, because it’s part of your own portfolio. With certain work you can’t be truly objective, especially if the process is quite extensive.’