Chanel’s Empire Reaches London

CHANEL may already
have several standalone stores in the British capital but now two
brands from its stable are opening here too. Maison Michel, an
early 20th century French milliner; and Barrie, a Scottish mill
behind much of Chanel’s knitwear, have been given own-brand units
in one of London’s oldest shopping spaces – Burlington Arcade, off Piccadilly – prompting a lot of
questions. Why did Chanel acquire these brands? Why promote them as
separate brands? Why do they need their own stores? Why London? Why
here? And, most importantly, is Chanel becoming an LVMH and
Kering-style conglomerate? Luckily, Bruno Pavlovsky – Chanel CEO
and also CEO of both of the aforementioned brands – is in a patient
mood.

“What we are doing at Chanel, in respect to our
investments, is to help enable us to create and design what we want
for Chanel,” he stated simply. Where LVMH might spot a young label
with potential for growth, Chanel is only interested in symbiotic
relationships, he explained. Every label that the French fashion
behemoth has invested in – including  French
tannery Bodin-Joyeux, couture embroider Lesage, lingerie label Eres
and watchmakers Bell Ross -  has some “use”
to the brand, so then why not just absorb them into Chanel? Why
give Barrie – now a standalone ready-to-wear brand with its own
seasonal collections as well as a knitwear supplier – its own
store? Pavlovsky smiled kindly, as if the rest of the fashion world
was slightly missing the point.

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“We are different,” he grinned mischievously, “we choose
the opposite approach. In order to continue to be creative, our
brands have to continue to work with many designers. If you work
all the time with the same brand, at some point you stop developing
your creativity. Different designers and different requests mean
that you have to be more agile, you have to adapt yourself. And
Chanel benefits – directly and indirectly – from this agility. They
need to build their own autonomy and not be merged with the big
group.”

The idea of a bird being allowed to fly free rather than
kept in a gilded Chanel cage is a romantic one, but from a
practical perspective total freedom in business could cause
problems. Like a jealous lover, would Chanel stop Barrie from
potential dalliances that may prove harmful or hurtful? What if
Givenchy or Dior wished to court its Scottish love?

“It’s happening already,” Pavolovsky smiled confidently -
seeming somewhat pleased that his new investment is still
attracting such admiration. “Both Chanel and Barrie work with many
other brands, many of the big names, and there is no contradiction
or problem with that. There are strong links between Chanel and
these brands, or course, but in order to be creative you also need
to see a broad landscape. You have to be able to go out, work with
young names, big names – as long as they can foster their
creativity, we are moving in the right direction.”

In line with the autonomy prescribed, each brand has its
own creative director – but each of these designers also holds a
role at Chanel, completing the circle as it were. Barrie’s creative
director, Odile Massuger, has created two collections for the
1903-founded brand, but also oversees knitwear for Chanel; while
Laetitia Crahay, artistic director of the Maison Michel collection,
is also head of jewellery at Chanel. This openness on the part of
the brand calls to mind the freedom afforded to Karl Lagerfeld
himself, who is also creative director of Fendi as well as Chanel -
and has many other creative outlets, from photography to designing
his eponymous label.

“Fendi, Dior, Vuitton, Chloé!” Pavlovsky joked. “There’s a
long list! I don’t see any contradiction with what he does, or with
what I do in overseeing all three brands. When Lagerfeld is working
on Chanel he is completely focused on Chanel. For my job too, you
have to be focused on one thing at a time: Chanel is bigger, so
takes more time of course, but these brands are developing and need
a lot of attention too.”

Chanel has been praised for creating jobs at the
once-struggling Barrie mill in the Scottish Borders – and there is
more to come.

“In two years, we have already recruited 50 people, and in
the next three years we will recruit 100 more people,” Pavlovsky
revealed. “The first priority for recruitment is the local area -
which is possible for some roles, not for others, and so to develop
that more we have opened an internal school within Barrie to make
the growth within the region possible. Training takes between six
to 18 months so at this stage it is still difficult, but the
training is helping.”

The London store openings, too, have engendered much
discussion, situated as they are on one of the capital’s “old”
retail sites rather than more popular Mount, Dover or Albemarle
Street.

“For these two labels, the collections are doing quite
well – both have had a boutique in Paris for around a year – so the
obvious place for the next store was London,” he said. “For Barrie
it’s more like coming home than opening internationally, but we
will look to open in the other key fashion cities later. Choosing
to open the store in Burlington Arcade was on purpose, because this
arcade is a bridge between yesterday and tomorrow. It is a good
place for these brands to be.”

So is this the beginning of Chanel Incorporated – a
massive conglomerate set to take over the fashion world?

“Yes and no,” he said. “Chanel is first and foremost about
Chanel. We have so many things that we continue to develop that we
want to always to focus on Chanel. Never forget that these brands
will all help us to continue to design our collections for the next
20, 30 years. So, they are not here just as a new brand, they are
here because they have a specific know-how that makes sense for
other brands – including Chanel. These labels have existed for a
long time and the only way to keep all the know-how of these
companies available for the big brands – Chanel being part of the
big brands – is to develop their own brands.”

See the Maison Michel and Barrie collections in their new
stores in Burlington Arcade, London, or online at Barrie.com and
Michel-paris.com.

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