Chanel has named veteran Unilever executive Leena Nair its new London-based global chief executive officer, effective at the end of January 2022. The first female, first Asian, youngest ever CHRO of Unilever of the Unilever Leadership Executive Leena Nair (born 1969).
“This new partnership at the helm of the company, appointed by The Board of Chanel Limited (UK), will further ensure long-term success as a private company, believing in the freedom of creation, cultivating human potential and acting to have a positive impact in the world,” Chanel said in a brief statement.
Nair joins the French fashion and beauty giant from Unilever, where she had a 30-year career. She has served as the global consumer goods company’s chief human resources officer, and a member of the executive committee since 2016.
According to Chanel, Nair has “built a global reputation for progressive and human centered leadership, delivering significant business impact” and went on to describe her as a “highly respected as a visionary leader whose ability to champion a long-term, purpose-driven agenda is matched with a consistently strong record of business outcomes.” Continue reading
Chanel had hoped to invite 200 guests to creative director Virginie Viard’s first fashion show outside Paris, but a second French lockdown forced the brand to revise its plans. When visitors take a guided tour of the Château de Chenonceau, they are often intrigued by the interlocking C that appear throughout the castle.
The initials are those of Catherine de Medicis, the former queen of France whose portrait hangs above an elaborate carved stone chimney bookended by lions. But to 21st century eyes, they look similar to the Chanel logo.
Also known as the Ladies’ Château, Chenonceau has a history marked by a succession of powerful women, of which the Renaissance rulers, in particular, inspired the label’s founder, Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel. Continue reading
A new exhibition in Paris aims to redress the balance, providing the most extensive overview so far of the creations of Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, who revolutionized fashion with her sleek, fluid designs that helped to liberate women from their corsets.
Tweed suits, the little black dress, two-tone shoes and quilted handbags: Chanel’s signature codes are as synonymous with French luxury today as they were a century ago, at the risk of obscuring the woman who launched the brand.
“Gabrielle Chanel. A Fashion Manifesto,” which opens on Oct. 1, coincides with the reopening of the Palais Galliera fashion museum and the inauguration of its new basement space for permanent exhibitions, sponsored by Chanel. Surprisingly, it’s the first major Chanel exhibition to be staged in the French capital. Continue reading
The French fashion house plans to unveil its annual Métiers d’Art collection on Dec. 1 at the Château de Chenonceau, one of the jewels of the Loire valley. The current château was built in 1514–1522 on the foundations of an old mill and was later extended to span the river. The bridge over the river was built (1556-1559) to designs by the French Renaissance architect Philibert de l’Orme, and the gallery on the bridge, built from 1570–1576 to designs by Jean Bullant.
Traditionally a traveling show that has alighted in destinations including Shanghai, Rome, Edinburgh, Salzburg and Dallas, the Métiers d’Art show was held in Paris last December in the wake of the death of Chanel’s longtime creative director Karl Lagerfeld earlier in the year.
Chanel is expected to be one of the first major brands to return to the catwalk this fall, with its show at the Grand Palais on Oct. 6 scheduled to be one of the highlights of Paris Fashion Week, which should also see brands including Dior, Louis Vuitton and Hermès welcome guests in a socially distanced manner. Continue reading
Which makes it all the more surprising that Viard emerged from lockdown with a couture lineup so unapologetically maximalist, it could have walked straight off an Eighties runway. Party dresses, bling and Marie-Antoinette shoes were just some of the ingredients of her presentation during the online edition of Paris Couture Week
“It’s an eccentric girl with a touch of the Eighties. I wanted something joyful,” the designer said in a preview last week, as photographer Mikael Jansson shot models Adut Akech and Rianne Van Rompaey in an adjoining studio for the show video: a one-minute, 22-second burst of images spliced with grainy black-and-white footage.
There was a historical feel to the ample skirts, including what would have been the traditional finale dress: a bucolic bridal creation with a pannier-width skirt and blousy sleeves, and a front panel covered in dozens of tiny pleated bibs.
Heavy, flower-shaped gold brooches set with diamanté and semi-precious stones sprouted from a collarless gray and white tweed jacket flecked with gold – the fruit of a collaboration between embroiderer Lesage and jeweler Goossens. Continue reading
Stores across the borough including Chanel in Soho and Coach in Midtown were targeted by unruly protesters in the fourth night of demonstrations over the death of Floyd. The police kept an eye on the Chanel Boutique, Probably Afro-Americans with no taste.
Surprisingly, the boutique Vuitton has not been affected by riots, probably because the brand is the only one to have two Afro-Americans in its design team. Continue reading
Virginie Viard on Wednesday showed her first Métiers d’Art line for Chanel. She chose to bring the collection back to Paris, after recent forays to New York and Hamburg, and titled it “31 Rue Cambon” in reference to the brand’s historic address, which also inspired the set codesigned by director Sofia Coppola, who sat in the front row alongside Kristen Stewart, Penélope Cruz and Lily-Rose Depp. Continue reading
As a reminder of the links between Gabrielle and the world of dance, Chanel is a sponsor of the opening gala of the 2019/20 Paris Opera dance season, which was held last week. And it is clear that there are many uneducated people today! Indeed, the Paris Opera has paid tribute in its own way to Serge Lifar and rehabilitating within the choreographic heritage is that reasonable! The most controversial man after the war and the mix of genres between Coco Chanel, a great lover of “artistic” collaboration, did not surprise anyone! An educated person will probably have slipped the information into the hands of a “Dir Conne” who is infertile to culture.
It should be noted that when France signed the Armistice in 1940, Lifar chose to collaborate by becoming a great friend of the Nazi party. He became one of the “stars” of Parisian cultural and social life, and twenty times on the job he handed over his outrage, between German officers and collaborators with whom he was in contact, he congratulated Germany after the capture of Kiev. Continue reading
Chanel has acquired a stake in Italian tannery Samanta, a specialist in printed leather, as it continues to secure its supply chain in the face of a growing shortage of high-quality leather.
In a rapidly changing luxury market and leather industry, the two companies have decided to join forces to help Samanta further develop its unique offering, recognized by the biggest names in luxury. For Chanel, Samanta’s expertise and technical know-how represents a real added value for the leather industry as a whole.
Samanta’s expertise in printed leather will be especially useful for Chanel, which announced last year that it would no longer use exotic skins including crocodile, lizard, snake and stingray, and would instead rely on the know-how of its in-house ateliers to create high-end products. Continue reading
Casting a wide net, Chanel has lined up 10 celebrities for its new J12 watch campaign that launches Monday. The approach is intimate, however, offering a peek into their personalities through snippets of conversation about time and life moments punctuated with the occasional flash of the latest version of the ceramic timepiece.
“It’s all about seconds,” is the catchphrase. Nine women are featured Keira Knightley, Carole Bouquet, Liu Wen, Anna Mouglalis, Ali MacGraw, Claudia Schiffer, Naomi Campbell, Vanessa Paradis and Lily-Rose Depp and one man: William Chan.
“A second is a second and a minute is made up of 60 seconds and an hour is 3,600 seconds so it’s something that is very objective and universal. Yet, we have all had extremely different, personal and unique experiences with time,” said the executive, swiping through images and films of the stars on a tablet screen. Continue reading
The luxury brand, which fired its shot across the bow of sophisticated resellers of designer goods last year by accusing The Real Real and What Goes Around Comes Around of selling counterfeits, is keeping the fight alive.
In its New York federal suit against The Real Real Inc., Chanel Inc. disputed the reseller’s assurances that it carries only authentic labels verified by a crack team of gemologists and other experts. Chanel had claimed that only Chanel itself can know what is genuine Chanel, while The Real Real panned the suit as little more than an effort to stamp out competitors in the secondary market.
“Simply put, [The Real Real] cannot hold itself out as an expert authenticator and seller of “100 percent real” Chanel-branded products and then, after advertising and selling counterfeit Chanel-branded goods, claim that its advertising claims are merely ‘general expression[s] of opinion’ that are ‘immune from challenge,’” Chanel’s lawyers argued in the brand’s filing Wednesday. Continue reading
Karl Lagerfeld’s last show for Chanel opened with a moment of silence, and the vast Grand Palais was as hushed as the mountain village depicted in the set, rows of wooden chalets, their chimneys smoking, set among pine trees and mounds of fake snow.
Lagerfeld loved snow he would rush out to take photos whenever it dusted Paris and his finale looks were white “snowball” sweater dresses with fluffy skirts, the first modeled by Penélope Cruz, who strolled out smiling and twirling a flower.
Chanel tucked a sketch into the press kits on each seat in Lagerfeld’s inimitable hand. It shows him standing with Gabrielle Chanel, and his handwritten caption read “The beat goes on…”
Claudia Schiffer, Janelle Monáe, Kristen Stewart, Stella Tennant, Ellie Bamber, Brandi Quinones and Naomi Campbell were among the bold-faced names to attend the show, along with international press and VIP clients
