Features

FOR SPT A tableau in Chanel’s Paris apartment serves as inspiration to company designers.

The creative connections between Russia and fashion brand Chanel are diverse and multivalent. The meeting between Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel and Prince Dmitry Romanov in Biarritz in 1920 sparked the designer’s genuine interest in Russian culture, art, history and costume, resulting in the creation of her famous “Russian collection” and the iconic Cuir de Russie perfume, as well as her contribution to Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes.

As Bruno Pavlovsky, the president of Chanel Fashion, points out, even today history remains a strong link connecting the brand to Russia. In December, Chanel opened its first boutique in St. Petersburg, and the expectations are high on both sides.

“Since the era of Mademoiselle, Chanel has inherited an impressive number of dedicated Russian customers,” Pavlovsky said. “We make every effort to ensure that Russia remains loyal to the brand. The Russian clients do appreciate these efforts. When in 2009 we showed our “Paris-Moscou” collection at Moscow’s Maly Theater — following the premiere of the collection in Paris — it was overwhelming. That show became our first in Russia since the historic 1967 show that was part of the First International Fashion Festival. A recent Chanel exhibition in Moscow’s Pushkin Museum, prepared by the curator Jean-Louis Froman, was a fusion of Chanel fashions, archival photographs, relics and art objects from the Pushkin museum, [and] brought a new perspective to the perception of Chanel in Russia.”

Chanel is careful about its international expansion strategy, limiting the number of openings to about ten new boutiques per year. According to Pavlovsky, the brand took several years to prepare its launch in St. Petersburg.

“Russia, along with the Middle East, Latin America and China, belongs to our priority markets,” Pavlovsky said. “Having established the brand in Moscow, we took the natural step of making a presence in St. Petersburg. Russian customers frequent our boutiques in Paris, London, Berlin and the Cote d’Azur, and we felt we ought to strengthen our presence in Russia.”

Designed by renowned New York architect Peter Marino, the St. Petersburg boutique is located at 152 Nevsky Prospekt and was inspired by the interiors of Mademoiselle Chanel’s apartment at 31 Rue Cambon in Paris.

Marino’s creative alliance with Chanel dates back years. The designer has been instrumental in shaping the images of all Chanel boutiques worldwide. Each new boutique bears a tangible connection to a symbol that is strongly associated with Chanel or the brand that she created.

The designs of the boutique in Kiev, for example, one of Chanel’s most recent openings, created direct associations with the bottle of Chanel’s signature fragrance, Chanel no.5.

“I would describe our alliance with the designer as unique,” Pavlovsky said. “Signs and symbols were important for Gabrielle Chanel; she took them seriously during her entire life. And at the heart of Marino’s approach to each project of Chanel boutiques is the concept that one of the symbols that were key to Chanel would serve as a foundation and inspiration for the design.”

Creativity, femininity and independence are the premier values upon which Chanel rests. As Pavlovsky points out, the brand has preserved the soul of Chanel, and this soul keeps the fashion house alive.

“We have been strong enough to resist the temptation to live off the immense history of Chanel,” he said. “We look at the world through the eyes of Coco Chanel but this is not at all a look from the past. I am talking about philosophy, the way of perceiving things. Gabrielle Chanel sought to surprise and amaze, and this is exactly what Karl Lagerfeld, our creative director, is seeking.”

Chanel today has set for itself the serious challenge of maintaining a reputation as one of the world’s most innovative and progressive brands, while taking inspiration from its incredibly rich heritage.

The trick is not to allow the legendary fashion house to become overwhelmed by its history — to keep one foot in the past and one in the future without being torn apart. Achieving the perfect balance is the task facing Bruno Pavlovsky, the president of Chanel Fashion.

“Creativity is the answer,” Pavlovsky said. “It is the talent of Karl Lagerfeld, his vision of Chanel, his ability to develop the fashion house and bring it forward. That is key to the brand’s success.”

Indeed, Lagerfeld is facing a Herculean task: Chanel releases eight collections annually, including two haute-couture and six ready-to-wear collections or each time the creative director has to produce a new interpretation, a fresh twist, while remaining grounded in the values originally created by Coco Chanel.

“Today, Chanel is perhaps one of the most successful business models based on creativity,” Pavlovsky said. “In her time, Mademoiselle was an avant-garde designer, a pioneer and innovator, and we are obliged to retain this spirit in the new collections. There are qualities in the character of Karl Lagerfeld that bring him close to Gabrielle Chanel — openness, sociability, a fantastic artistic intuition and a hunch for ideas that will set trends. There was no Internet back in Mademoiselle’s time yet she was always aware of the things that were going on, and her intuition enabled her to make the right choice, again and again. Lagerfeld belongs to the same breed of artists.”

Chanel Fashion has been enthusiastic about bringing its shows to new, at times unorthodox, venues, from palaces to luxury shopping centers, with one of the most recent examples being London’s Harrods.

Chanel excels at conceiving original staging solutions: The presentation of the brand’s haute-couture Spring/Summer collection, which had its world premiere at Paris’s Grand Palais in January, saw a romantic forest brought into the glass-covered, atrium-like space of the exhibition hall. The audience sat in front of a wooden theater surrounded by trees as models paraded in front of them on fine white sand. Furthermore, Chanel made sure that the forest that was uprooted for the show was removed from an area that had been intended for new construction.

While these efforts allow audiences to see Chanel creativity from fresh new angles, the goals that the fashion house sets when choosing a location sound much more pragmatic.

“Each time we simply seek the most adequate pairing to a particular collection,” Pavlovsky said. “We give Karl Lagerfeld all the support we can in finding the ideal venue and the right music, to ensure that every element of the collection’s presentation is in harmony with the designers’ ideas. My task here is to create the most favorable climate for the creative team. The starting point is always Mr. Lagerfeld’s concept, and we take it from there when we look for locations, models and soundtracks. The presentation is taken seriously as it ensures that the designer’s ideas are understood correctly.”

Unlike some leading European fashion brands such as Gucci, Armani and Versace, Chanel has been adamant about not using the Internet to sell its fashion items. While Pavlovsky admits that the launch of an online boutique would boost sales, he stresses that such a move would go against the brand’s philosophy.

“It is not only about the fact that a Chanel dress has to fit perfectly, and, as it has sophisticated and detailed tailoring, may require some adjustments,” Pavlovsky explains. “It is essential that our customers make their choice about a Chanel item through direct physical contact — which would only be possible if a potential customer makes a visit to our boutique.”

While Chanel refrains from launching online trade, the brand has been active in establishing a complex contact with potential audiences through the Internet, using the opportunities presented by websites and even Twitter. Bruno Pavlovsky sees no contradiction in this attitude. Rather, the president of Chanel Fashion explains that the brand is keen to use the Internet as an instrument of seduction, a tool of allure.

“The Internet is important for establishing a connection between the brand and the audience, to make this aesthetic connection strong and complex,” Pavlovsky said. “We need the Internet to attract, allure and seduce, to encourage those looking at the images that we create to make a physical connection with them in the real world. It is not our goal to shift our communication with the customers from reality onto the Internet.”