.png){kind=logo}
Prada Taps Disney And Bluth Veterans For A Classic Hand-Drawn Holiday Campaign
Stay informed with free updates
Sign up to get our news digest — delivered directly to your inbox twice a week.
If the major studios don’t want to give audiences lush, classic hand-drawn animation, at least some luxury fashion houses seem keen to put veteran animators to work.
Prada’s new holiday campaign, Drawing Prada: Animated by Hand, features animation directed by John Pomeroy, whose career spans more than five decades across Disney, Don Bluth’s studios, and numerous other independent productions. The series of ads blends live action with classic 20th-century 2D animation, placing its human cast in illustrated winter landscapes populated by woodland creatures.
Pomeroy began his Disney career in 1973, animating on Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too under legendary animator Frank Thomas. He later joined Don Bluth and Gary Goldman as one of the three founders of Don Bluth Productions before eventually returning to Disney, where he supervised the animation of John Smith in Pocahontas. His background also includes the live-action/animation hybrid Pete’s Dragon.
For the Prada project, Pomeroy assembled a team of fellow traditional animators. In an accompanying behind-the-scenes film, lead animator Tom Bancroft describes Pomeroy as having “called the band back together.” Pomeroy, meanwhile, explains the foundation of their approach: “I learned my craft with pencil and paper.”
Glen Luchford handled photography and direction, with lighting and perspective designed to match the illustrated environments. Ferdinando Verderi served as the campaign’s creative director. The campaign includes both short films and still images.
The Prada campaign echoes what we’ve seen in other high-end fashion ads, like Givenchy’s 2022 101 Dalmatians spot, overseen by another 20th-century legend, Eric Goldberg, and more modest marketing from ambitious artists inspired by classic 2D feature animation, like this 2025 Scandinavian PSA about recycling. These commissions won’t rebuild Hollywood’s hand-drawn feature pipeline, but they’re a reminder that the medium still has plenty to offer.
