Chanel Coco Beach 2024 Campaign Drifts in Calm Waters As Chanel Changes Course
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At Chanel, Let the Good Times Roll
Chanel is riding high off a 16 percent revenue increase in annual sales over 2023. Price increases alone drove up sales by around 9 percent, according to BoF.
“In the last decade, we have more than doubled our revenue; we have more than doubled our headcount. And in the last five years, we’ve doubled the size of our distribution network. So that’s a lot of change internally, and you’re operating in what is a rapidly changing context globally, which is complex. We see multiple crises in the world,” chief executive Leena Nair said.
Praise for Virginie Viard, Then . . .
“Collections can be more or less successful, these things happen to any designer,” explained Chanel CFO Philippe Blondiaux, in same BoF May 21, 2024 business overview article: “But since Virginie [Viard] took over from Karl…the Chanel fashion business has been multiplied by 2.2. The Chanel ready-to-wear business has been multiplied by 2.5, and the ready-to-wear business last year of Chanel grew by 23%.”
You might assume that those comments expressed a strong support for Virginie Viard. You would be wrong.
Last week Chanel creative director since 2019, Virginie Viard was escorted out of the esteemed house where she had worked since 1987.
Chanel’s Visionary Search Is On
AOC has written multiple times about Chanel’s confusing creative and messaging directions under Viard. Not that we were so in love with it under Lagerfeld.
Seemingly out-of-touch with the world at large and given Coco Chanel’s own delicate political history in Europe, AOC is on the record saying we’re watching the brand like a hawk, and we continue to write today from that perspective. ~ Anne
