From the moment you step into the “Gabrielle Chanel. Fashion Manifesto” exhibition at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, you get a sense of just how avant-garde Coco Chanel was. And it wasn’t merely her low-slung dresses, her glittering “dinner party” pyjamas and her little black jackets, but her desire to embrace whatever was coming next in the world of culture and design.
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Instead, fashion houses such as Chanel and Saint Laurent have begun financing independent cinema, or partnering with the industry’s most exciting young storytellers to create visually beautiful motion pictures.
At this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Saint Laurent unveiled the short film Strange Way of Life directed by Pedro Almodóvar, and co-produced by the luxury brand and the iconoclastic Spanish filmmaker’s own production company El Desso. Costume design, unsurprisingly, was done by Anthony Vaccarello, creative director at Saint Laurent, and director and star Ethan Hawke strutted down the red carpet in his designs.
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Strange Way of Life marked the first creation of Saint Laurent Productions, the recently launched film arm of the French fashion house. Vaccarello will oversee coming collaborations with many of the most feted directors working today – David Cronenberg, Wong Kar-wai, Paolo Sorrentino, Jim Jarmusch and Gaspar Noé. “I want to work with and provide a space for all the great film talents who have inspired me over the years,” said Vaccarello.
While Saint Laurent is the only house with a production wing, plenty of other brands are becoming increasingly involved with the industry: Chanel too has worked on major motion pictures, most notably the Princess Diana biopic Spencer starring the brand’s muse Kristen Stewart, for which the house designed nearly all the costumes. The house also supported two of Stewart’s other projects: Clouds of Sils Maria and Personal Shopper.
“As E.M. Forster wrote, ‘only connect’, and we are dedicated to co-creation, knowledge exchange and innovating across artistic disciplines to inspire future generations of creatives worldwide,” says Peel.
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Valentino also has a finger in the pie and at Cannes in 2019 hosted the premiere of The Staggering Girl, a film the house part-funded that was directed by Luca Guadagnino. Inspired by the couture collections, the set was built around Valentino’s designs and much of the focus was on the artistry of the clothes.
These relationships also add a gravitas to a brand’s cultural offering – lifting them up into the sphere of serious cinema. “It allows them to be a heavyweight across culture rather than just fashion – which is where I think a lot of luxury brands want to reposition themselves,” says Harris. “I wouldn’t be surprised if what they’ve done in art doesn’t soon get repeated in the world of cinema.”
As for directors, the injection of cash that comes from partnering with luxury brands has been hugely appreciated: Chanel’s financial assistance on Clouds of Sils Maria, for example, allowed the director to realise his vision by working on 35mm film, rather than shooting digitally.
“Film is always a reflection of society, as is fashion,” Jean Paul Gaultier, one of the industry’s biggest cinema buffs, once said. “In many ways they belong together.”
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