Frank Ocean Faces Prada's S/S 20 Campaign
Frank Ocean has been unveiled as the face of Prada’s Spring/ Summer 2020 menswear campaign. Shot in LA by David Sims, the American singer also stars alongside Once Upon a Time in Hollywood actor Austin Butler and Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn. Previous Prada campaign stars have included the likes of Christoph Waltz and Joaquin Phoenix.
The Grammy-winning R&B artist is well-known for his love affair with Prada. Perhaps most memorably he turned a few heads at the 2019 Met Gala, donning an all-black ensemble featuring Prada’s black nylon anorak - a stark contrast to the gala theme of 'camp' when Ocean had come dressed ready for a school geography trip. Admittedly though, he did look pretty slick – a natural choice, then, for Prada’s new campaign. Turns out this isn’t Ocean’s first stint in the modelling industry, however, having previously starred in Calvin Klein’s A/W 20 campaign next to a Marilyn Monroe lookalike.
The new campaign images juxtapose greyscale studio shots next to casual technicolour snaps. Ocean gazes wistfully in one IMDb-esque head shot, the acronymic words 'Programming Rhythms And Dancing Again' over-laid, whilst next to it he lounges against a wall, hand in pocket and wearing a bolo tie – what more could we ever ask for? The contrast between the two stylistically diverse images reflect the difference between the singer’s public career and private life – the clothes transcending both boundaries. Accompanying the images is also a short campaign film showing close up snippets of the gents readjusting ties and walking purposefully.
Whilst, granted, Butler and Refn look suitably suave, it’s Frank who really steals the show.