NYLON - October 2007 - (Page 92) ABOUT FACE Catherine Deneuve. Kate Moss. Vanessa Paradis. Each one a legendary beauty who will likely never lose the ability to captivate, they are just a few of the countless women who have been cherrypicked to appear in Chanel’s advertisements over the years. While many labels are content to slap their designs on any dizzy blonde du jour, the house of Chanel has long taken great pride in the careful selection of the women representing it—they are, in essence, the brand’s muses. Only Deneuve could have balanced elegance and sexuality so adroitly, and no one but Paradis could make impish so enticing. When Moss’s time as the face of Coco Mademoiselle recently expired, so began the incredible task of searching for a replacement. “Kate Moss left some big shoes to fill,” explains Jacques Helleu, Chanel’s creative director. “Coco Mademoiselle is someone who is independent and sexy, a liberated woman who’s both modern and young.” Helleu watched dozens of recent films in search of his new muse, until he saw Keira Knightley in Pride & Prejudice and felt he had to look no further. “Her natural ‘flaws’ were visible,” Helleu says, then clarifies. “I should explain what I mean by this. In the film Keira wore no makeup. She wore lengths of fabric as dresses and she had almost no hairstyle, just a little bun behind her head. And, of course, she was wearing no jewelry. She was a Cinderella in the making! For me Keira embodied perfection itself: she was remarkable without any kind of decoration. And I thought that if this is how she was bare, then I could imagine how wonderful she would be embellished.” And Knightley certainly is embellished in the ad, photographed by Dominique Issermann, and the accompanying mini film directed by Joe Wright, with whom she worked on Pride, and her glammed-up image is all a far cry from the tattered garb of Pirates of the Caribbean. As Chanel’s illustrious model ranks continue to grow, one can only wonder who will be crowned next. FIORELLA VALDESOLO Clockwise: Ali MacGraw, Catherine Deneuve, Vanessa Paradis, Nicole Kidman, Keira Knightley, and Kate Moss. about face: courtesy of chanel.
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