Photo: Courtesy of Prada.
This week, New York City's literary scene got a little more crowded — and a lot more fashionable. Prada's Broadway Epicenter store was the backdrop for a party celebrating the announcement of the winners of the brand's first fiction contest.
The event was very much an international affair. Prada and contest partner, Italian publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Editore, chose five stories from more than 1,300 entries in over 29 languages. Winners Mattia Conti, Leisl Egan, Angel Mario Fernández, Sarah Harris Wallman, and Peng Yang each successfully answered the competition's prompt: "What are the realities that our eyes give back to us? And, how are these realities filtered through lenses?" The question was inspired by Prada's eyewear collection, which shares the contest's name, Prada Journal. Each writer will receive a €5,000 cash prize and their stories will be published in a digital book available on the runway label's website by the end of 2013.
The star-studded evening included luminaries Zoe Kazan, Jonathan Ames, Gary Shteyngart, and Anthony Mackie reading excerpts from the winning entries. Actor Oliver Platt served as the night's MC and DJ Jeffrey Tonnesen kept the party jumping with his souped-up tunes. Paul Dano, Giovanna Battaglia, Jessica Joffe, Meredith Melling, Mamie Gummer, and Olivier Rizzo were just some of the guests celebrating the writers' success. Could this be the start of a Prada-certified library? We very much hope so.