The Prada faces you're about to see a lot more of Womenswear

Prada SS1635 Images

Prada have got a widely acknowledged history of launching the careers of successful models. While often enlisting industry veterans (such as Julia Nobis) to walk in their shows, they also select a couple of fresh faces too. For these girls, it’s often their runway debut and, called “exclusives”, they walk for Prada, and only Prada, during Milan Fashion Week. The house is known for its innovation – where Prada goes, they say, the fashion world follows – and this is true in terms of their casting, not just their designs. With its seal of approval, these exclusives go on to achieve great things in the modeling industry.

Just take Lineisy Montero, who made her grand debut at the Prada show last season. The sight of her coming down the catwalk – with her doe eyes, closely cropped afro and radiant natural beauty – became one of the standout modeling moments of AW15. Since then, the Dominican Republic native has not only gone on to land a campaign for the house, but also a Dazed cover and 23 shows at this just gone New York Fashion Week – a number that surpassed every one of her contemporaries.

Or take Maartje Verhoef who was an exclusive at the brand’s SS13 show and has gone on to book campaigns for Dior Beauty, Givenchy Beauty, Louis Vuitton, Prada and Valentino, making her one of models.com’s top 50 models. Harleth Kuusik, Ola Rudnicka, Nastya Sten and Julia Bergshoeff are other example of girls who have gone from Prada exclusive to runway veteran and again, one of models.com’s top 50. Devon Windsor was an exclusive at the SS14 show and has gone on to work roster of high-end labels, along with Victoria’s Secret – which famously catapults models into a different level of modeling stardom (she now has 253k Instagram followers).

Moral of the story? A Prada exclusive is worth paying attention to because a successful career is almost guaranteed from the moment they step out onto the brand’s MFW catwalk wearing the house’s latest designs. But who selects these girls? Well, up until SS12 it was legendary casting director Russell Marsh who is credited with discovering industry icons Daria Werbowy, Sasha Pivovarova and Lara Stone. Now however, it’s Ashley Brokaw – a longterm collaborator of Steven Meisel and who, alongside Miuccia, counts Jonathan Anderson, Nicolas Ghesquière and Proenza Schouler as faithful clients.

While Anderson has said, “If you want to be a working model, get on Ashley’s radar,” Ghesquière has described her as a “fearless hunter.” So who has she “hunted” this season? Here’s five of this season’s Prada exclusives – models who are about to blow up.