Chanel Pre Fall Collection

Paris Shanghai, A Fantasy

Chanel's Pre-fall 2010 collection was a joining of East and West, held on a barge in Shanghai. A beautiful collection, and finally something in the news about fashion again. As a prelude to the show, Karl Lagerfeld produced a short, 20 minute film called Paris Shanghai, A Fantasy. It seems to take on the issues of Coco Chanel with Shanghai, showing a sweet little drama about creating a collection in Shanghai. The first part of the video is below, from YouTube.com:





Part 2


Part 3


The idea of creating a little film is very typical of a luxury brand. The last high street brand I saw creating a video was for a television advert. Creating such a long film, with no particular purpose except to raise awareness, is Chanel's new form of advertising, and it's a pretentious one at that, even though brilliant. Chanel has been creating little promotional movies for a while now, like Lady Dior starring Marion Cottillard, but they have been their own unique form of advertising aimed at the customers, and admirers. But would it be enough to interest people in the brand at this time? It seems to be projecting exclusivity again, rejecting any forms of having the public communicate back unless it's put on YouTube.