Prada puts Sadie Sink and Maya Hawke in a hand-drawn holiday film
Prada's 2026 holiday film pairs Sadie Sink, Maya Hawke and other actors with hand-drawn animals in a storybook world.
A tiny group of hand-drawn mice is after a shoe in Prada's holiday fantasy. Actor Sadie Sink occupies the live-action world, but the mischievous illustrated animals are allowed to interrupt it. It is the kind of festive fashion scene where the surprise comes not from a grand celebrity entrance, but from a small character drawn one frame at a time.
In its official 2026 holiday campaign, Prada brings Sink together with Maya Hawke, Chen Haoyu, Luther Ford and Kelvin Harrison Jr. for Drawing Prada: Animated by Hand. Glen Luchford directs the film and John Pomeroy oversees the traditional animation, bringing winter settings, live-action fashion and storybook creatures into the same world.
Table of contents
Jump to each section:
- Why hand-drawn animals lead the holiday fantasy
- How Sadie Sink and Maya Hawke enter the illustrated world
- What old-school animation adds to luxury storytelling
- What marketers can learn from the handmade look
Why hand-drawn animals lead the holiday fantasy
The illustrated characters offer a different way into a luxury holiday film. There are mice, rabbits and a fox, creatures familiar from children's picture books rather than fashion lookbooks. A shoe becomes something to steal or examine, and a winter scene becomes a place where a drawn animal can plausibly appear.
That playful scale matters. Many holiday campaigns ask viewers to admire a beautifully dressed celebrity. Prada instead gives the stars something unusual to respond to, so the clothes appear inside a story. The animation is not simply a decorative border or a graphic layered over the end card; it participates in the scenes.
The contrast also gives the film a tactile look. Hand-drawn lines move against photographed settings, and the difference between the two is visible by design. It invites attention to the act of making the images, a fitting subject for a fashion label presenting its work through an unusually labor-intensive medium.
How Sadie Sink and Maya Hawke enter the illustrated world
For viewers who know the cast through television, part of the appeal is seeing familiar actors in a setting where the rules are different. Sink plays Max and Hawke plays Robin in Stranger Things, as reflected in Netflix's cast coverage. That connection gives the film recognizable faces without making it an extension of the Netflix series.
The Prada production also includes Chinese actor Chen Haoyu, British actor Luther Ford and Kelvin Harrison Jr., spreading the action across an ensemble instead of making a single celebrity carry the entire holiday narrative. The cast supplies distinct real-world characters. The drawn animals are the element that makes the spaces feel unexpectedly shared.
There is an important difference between using a celebrity to speak directly about a product and placing an actor inside a fictional world. Here the actors are part of the tale, while the familiar Prada clothes and accessories give the film its fashion setting. That allows recognition to bring someone to the campaign without requiring every scene to function as a conventional endorsement.
What old-school animation adds to luxury storytelling
Traditional animation can look deliberately imperfect beside polished film photography. Lines have a handmade quality, and animals can behave in ways that no live-action creature would. In Drawing Prada, this visual mismatch is the idea rather than something to correct.
For a luxury fashion house, the choice creates a connection between two kinds of craft. Clothing and accessories involve physical materials and construction. Hand-drawn animation involves many deliberate images arranged into movement. The analogy does not prove anything about how Prada products are made, but it makes the language of painstaking creation visible in the advertisement itself.
That approach distinguishes Prada from other luxury holiday stories built around famous faces. Tiffany & Co. pairs Amanda Seyfried with a story about gifting, while Swarovski brings Ariana Grande into a musical holiday world. These are different campaigns, but together they show how a seasonal brand film can use a performer as the entry point to a more elaborate creative environment.
Prada has not disclosed sales, viewing or audience-response results for this film in the verified materials. Its creative distinction is observable; its commercial impact is not yet established.
What marketers can learn from the handmade look
A hand-drawn mouse does not have to be famous to become the most memorable thing in a celebrity-led scene. That is the opportunity in Prada's approach, and also the challenge for marketers considering a similarly crafted campaign.
- Give the audience a scene, not just a face. Recognizable actors may attract attention, but a specific incident, such as illustrated creatures interfering with a fashion moment, gives the viewer something concrete to remember.
- Let the medium carry part of the message. Choosing traditional animation is meaningful because the visible hand-drawn texture supports the film's storybook premise. An expensive technique alone is not a strategy; its effect needs to serve the idea.
- Keep the collaborators in one shared world. The Prada cast and its drawn characters are not presented as unrelated attractions. They meet inside the same holiday fantasy, giving the campaign a coherent reason to include both.
- Distinguish creative attention from proven results. The craftsmanship can be evaluated by watching the film. Any claims that it increased purchases, reached a particular audience or went viral would require data that has not been disclosed.
The wider lesson is about the difference between celebrity recognition and story ownership. Prada has several recognizable performers, but the piece is not simply a collection of endorsements. The illustrated animals supply much of its personality.
That could matter for brands competing in a crowded holiday season. A short-lived seasonal campaign has to make its world understandable quickly, and a strange but legible visual detail can help. Whether that produces sustained attention or purchases remains a separate question.
For now, Drawing Prada shows how a fashion brand can turn a familiar holiday film format into a crafted little fable. Its most distinctive character may be one nobody could photograph.
