Directed by Karl Lagerfeld
Director of photography: Xavier Arias
Costume Designer: Leila Smara
Make-UP: Peter Philips
Hair: Sam McKnight
Chef Editor: Nicolas Bancilhon
Cast: Amanda Harlech, Kristen McMenamy, Freja Beha, Bianca Balti, Anna Mouglalis, Baptiste Giabiconi, Brad Koening, Jake Davies, Mark Vanderloo, Oriol Elcacho, Sebastien Jondeau, Seth Kuhlmann

“It is a movie about an ill-advised use of money which begins with violence and ends with feeling” Karl Lagerfeld, May 2011

Karl Lagerfeld himself directed and produced the new short film “The Tale of A Fairy” for the new Chanel Cruise Collection 11/12. It’s a story about the bold and the beautiful, living their everyday life full of greed for money and power, enviousness, scheming and a lot of passion around all.
The actors are all familiar faces, such as 90ies supermodel Kristen McMenamy, topmodel Freja Beha or famous actress Anna Mouglalis. All of them wearing… the Chanel Cruise Collection, of course.

In any case, despite it’s (quite lenghty) 25 minutes, the film is very much enjoyable and definitely is a milestone in the development of fashion film towards a more complex and narrative format.

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Once again, the Focus on Accessories-Series delivers. And once again Karl Lagerfeld is the only one credited on the creative side. I still have some doubts about his involvement and assume he’s some kind of creative supervisor. Really, it’s a pity we don’t get to know the other creatives behind those Chanel films. If you watch closely, you can spot a camera flash sometime. That could be Karl’s…

The Spring Summer-Collection was inspired by Alain Resnais’ “Last Year at Marienbad”. Fun fact: back then, Coco Chanel designed the costumes for Delphine Seyrig, the lead actress of the film.

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I wasn’t very impressed with Karl’s latest efforts, but this little gem from 2008 is quite nice. It captures the silent film era very well, working with a large vignettes, dialogue titles and quite convincing in-camera-like effects. Youtube-quality on all the uploads i could track is very low, but I guess that’s a good thing. That way, you can’t spot the digital filters they used on the material to make it look dated. So, the nostalgia is quite convincing, and so is the performance by Edita Vilkeviciute as Gabrielle (pre-Coco) Chanel.

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Chanel Spring/Summer 2010 – Focus on Acessories and Details.
One of my favorites. It’s a clever hybrid. It combines the setting and posing from a foto shooting with little, but significant motion (camera- and model-whise). And it does so in great style. I coldn’t trace neither Director nor DOP, so if you have any information on this, I’d be thankful.

UPDATE: it seems that Karl Lagerfeld is listed as the director. I don’t know… Art Director maybe, but not the film’s director. Doesn’t resemble anything he’s done yet.

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