The designer also conscripted three powerful women for the spots: Kristen Stewart, Cara Delevingne and Caroline de Maigret. It is understood the personalities were shot separately, not as a group, and that this is the first time a man has appeared in a Chanel handbag ad.
The brand is keeping the visuals under wraps until their debut on April 3, but confirmed the four guests of honor on Monday.
WWD had already reported Nov. 3 that Stewart would appear in the Gabrielle campaign. A face of Chanel makeup, Stewart has appeared in fashion campaigns for Chanel’s Métiers d’Art collections and appeared in a movie Lagerfeld directed for his “Paris in Rome” effort in December 2015.
The designer also photographed Stewart for a handbag campaign in 2015 that featured Vanessa Paradis and Alice Dellal as well.
Delevingne and Williams have appeared together for Chanel in the past. The English model was featured in Lagerfeld’s short film that celebrated the Paris-Salzburg Métiers d’Art collection in 2014, in which he and Delevingne danced in the final scene.
Known for her androgynous, rock-tinged style, de Maigret started modeling for Chanel in the late Nineties and is now a brand ambassador. She also has a music label and is a producer, photographer and co-author of the book “How To Be Parisian: Wherever You Are.”
The Gabrielle bag was unveiled on Chanel’s spring runway — and it’s one of those simple yet ingenious designs at which Lagerfeld excels. The designer got the idea from looking at virtual reality goggles and upending the shape. Cue a flat-bottomed, neo hobo with a double-chain handle that permits multiple carrying options. It can be worn as a shoulder bag, across the body or with the chain going over one shoulder and then diagonally across the other.
The Hollywood Reporter : A Chanel ad wouldn’t be complete without Kristen Stewart, too. When it comes to Chanel, Karl Lagerfeld definitely plays favorites.
Kristen Stewart and Cara Delevingne come to mind as perennial Chanel darlings, and for the brand’s latest handbag campaign, the ladies as well as Pharrell Williams — another of Lagerfeld’s chosen few — will join forces.
Though not due out until April 3, the Lagerfeld-lensed campaign will star ambassadors Williams, Stewart and Caroline de Maigret (current face of the brand’s Boyfriend watch) as well as Delevingne, who is described as a “friend of the house” and “ever loyal to Karl Lagerfeld.”
Each of the designer’s four favorites have previously starred in campaigns for the French fashion house, and Delevingne and Williams even posed together alongside seven-year-old Hudson Kroenig (a Chanel veteran himself) for the Paris-Salzburg collection in 2015.
The Gabrielle bag, first introduced during the spring 2017 show in October during Paris Fashion Week, “adapts to every character, situation or mood, as demonstrated by Kristen Stewart, Caroline de Maigret, Cara Delevingne and Pharrell Williams,” according to a release, and can be worn over the shoulder, across the body or as a backpack.
