In China, 20 May, or ‘5/20’, is a day that represents and celebrates love. To mark this date, Prada is running an original campaign that explores the emotion in all its various guises, in the context of the new way we live our daily lives due to the spread of Coronavirus, both during and after social distancing. The result is a definition of love: simultaneously universal and specific, timeless yet connected to the period we are currently living through. 

The star of “Prada 520 Mathematics of Love” is Cai Xu Kun, who previously worked with Prada for the Code Human project. Here he takes us through a series of actions steeped in meaning, expressing various goals and thoughts dedicated to love.

Kun, the eclectic performer, singer, rapper, dancer and songwriter, arrives home late at night, and cannot sleep. An assortment of evocative fragments begin to describe his actions through a series of numbers. Each figure has a hidden meaning, evoking one of the emotions associated with new love, and together they add up to a significant number: 520. A highly symbolic date, but also a word that is full of life, and which when spoken aloud recalls the Chinese for ‘I love you’.

Kun’s actions include “11 outfits changed”, “8 cakes made for you”, “12 new songs written”, “85 attempts to pick the perfect gift”, “40 tulips planted”, “100 hours thinking of you”, “30 minutes of training”, and his heart beats to the rhythm of his emotions, at “130 beats per minute”.

Comprising both static images and a video, the digital campaign - unveiled on May 4, 2020 on Prada’s social networks and at prada.com - provides a vivid representation of how, even at a time of social distancing, emotions like love and hope remain free, alive in us, intense and untroubled, along with the passions that have always guided us and inspired our lives.

A special selection of products dedicated to the 520 celebration is available at selected Prada stores in China, on prada.com and through a pop-up shop created exclusively for the WeChat Mini Program.