The fashion brand–Chanel, is easily recognized by everyone all over the world. In last year report, Chanel was labeled as the most popular luxury brand in China. Also, it kept being ranked as one of the top luxury brands in Forbes.This prompts up the question, why do people love Chanel and how can a fashion brand maintain its legacy over a century? Before answering the question, I would like to introduce one of Chanel’s commercial advertisement for its new editions to the Rouge Allure Lipstick range.
This one minute advertisement is the homage to a Dadaist photographer,Erwin Blumenfeld, who shot this iconic cover photo for Vogue Magazines in the 1930s and 1940s. Since the founder, Coco Chanel got the inspiration of the art movements such as Cubism, Dadaism and Surrealism, she tried to collaborate her brand in the artistic ventures. In this short film, the new lipstick shade were glorified by the quirky charm of the advertisement. Unlike most of the cosmetic advertisement which over photoshop its model to attract consumers, Chanel continue to embed its fashion identity with the value of the avant-garde art movement. Except the lipstick commercial, the well known perfume No.5 also cited from the Dadaists’ work.
This week, the reading points out that one of the most important cultural root for the alternative media and activist new media development is the avant-garde art movement including the dadaism and surrealism. It reveals the importance of the art movements because they demonstrate the social trend. Chanel, successfully realized the meaning of those art movements and kept learning from the visual codes of the avant-garde ideas.
Chanel created its unique fashion identity and keep attaining the absolute modernity by following the avant-garde artistic work. Compared with numerous fashion brand, Chanel features itself by adding more historical art connotation and offering avant-garde fashion via new media to masses. That’s the strategy that I think Chanel had become successful fashion brand and maintained its reputation over a hundred year.