Last week Dior unveiled its pre-fall campaign, starring Jennifer Lawrence wearing a refreshingly relaxed and casual outfit of a T-shirt, jeans, ballet pumps and a Bar jacket. Yesterday, Chanel released a new film, celebrating the French fashion house's latest bag style – the Gabrielle – and long-time face of the brand and fellow actress, Kristen Stewart, appears in similarly low-key attire.
The Personal Shopper actress is one of four friends of the house who will star in short films for the new handbag, named after founder, Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel. Cara Delevingne, Pharrell Williams and Caroline de Maigret will also each feature in their own idiosyncratic film, capturing their individual personalities.
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This first film in the series, which was directed by Australian filmmaker and artist Daniel Askill, sees Stewart enter a dimly-lit abandoned warehouse, wearing a plain white T-shirt, black jeans and a bouclé jacket with her pre-platinum bob, tied up in a messy bun. Stewart begins to dance around the space, before spotting the Gabrielle bag, putting it on and energetically swirling around the warehouse. She then sees the name 'Gabrielle' written in the dust on a window, suggesting that perhaps the place is inhabited by the spirit of Coco herself.
"What we landed on was ultimately the search for Gabrielle's spirit, and the sort of fight you can have with the idea of someone disappearing," Stewart explained in a behind-the-scenes clip. "There's something eerie about the film, but it's ultimately exuberant. It leads me to her name, Gabrielle, scrawled on the window, it's like affirmation, I've been validated. It almost represents the first glimpse Gabrielle allows me to have of her, and I get happy."
While we've grown accustomed to seeing the world's biggest names appearing in extravagant gowns and couture pieces for campaigns for luxury brands such as Dior and Chanel, it is interesting to see these storied houses begin to tap into a new audience with a more casual aesthetic and nonchalant, rebellious attitude.
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