The archive · Design & Visual · Product decision · 2022
Prada sends its FW22 menswear invitation as pyjamas printed with the invite text
Zak Group designed Prada's FW22 menswear invitation as white cotton pyjamas printed with the invite text, custom type and artwork.
Prada
What it had to solve
Zak Group designed the invitations for Prada's Fall/Winter 2022 menswear show. A fashion invitation is normally a printed card that gets opened, read and thrown away, so the studio set out to make the invitation itself say something about the house before the show began.
How it works
Zak Group designed the invitations for Prada's Fall/Winter 2022 menswear show, and chose a form that has nothing to do with paper: a set of classic white cotton pyjamas with the invitation text printed directly on the garment.
For the lettering, Zak Group introduced a customised secondary typeface by Chi-Long Trieu, printed on the front of the pyjamas, while Peter De Potter's illustrations accompany the Prada logotype on the back of the sleepwear.
The result turned an invitation from a disposable card into a wearable keepsake that enters the guest's own world — pyjamas being among the first and last things a person wears in a day. D&AD awarded the piece a Wood Pencil in the 2022 Awards, and its annual highlighted it among the season's FW22 menswear invitations.
Why it lands
- A garment is the medium a fashion house knows best, so the invitation spoke Prada's own language instead of a printer's.
- Wearable invitations are kept rather than binned, so the message outlived the event it announced.
- Commissioned type and artist illustration made the piece collectible instead of merely decorative.
- The pyjama form linked the invitation to clothing itself, previewing a fashion house's world in its own material.
What it did
The pyjamas turned a disposable announcement into an object from Prada's own world that guests could keep and wear, and D&AD singled the invitation out in its 2022 annual before awarding it a Wood Pencil in the Graphic Design Direct Mail category.
What you can take
Design the invitation as an object from the brand's own world: a garment a guest keeps and wears carries the show's message far longer than a card they discard.
Since then
The FW22 pyjama invitation entered the D&AD Awards archive as a 2022 Wood Pencil winner for Graphic Design Direct Mail. The transferable idea — make the invitation an artifact of the brand rather than a piece of paper — applies to any launch whose first audience is the people the brand most wants to impress.
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