PostED ON 20.10.2022

Bruno Pavlovsky, President of Chanel's Fashion Activities and Chanel SAS, talks about the historic links between the fashion house and designers, actresses and women directors.

Why is Chanel associated with the "Permanent History of Women Filmmakers" section?

As part of our support for the Lumière Film Festival, we are proud to celebrate the work of a female director, Maï Zetterling. After the Japanese Kinuyo Tanaka in 2021, the festival wanted to invite the public this year to rediscover the work of this major figure of Swedish cinema, a pioneer of her time. We welcome this approach and the recognition given by an institution to the role of women in the history of cinema. We have shared our history for a hundred years, and Gabrielle Chanel's proximity to the greatest figures of 20th century cinema, like Virginie Viard today, is proof of this.

The Lumière Film Festival pays tribute this year to Jeanne Moreau, the filmmaker. Can you tell us about her links with Gabrielle Chanel and the fashion house?

Gabrielle Chanel was friends with some major directors, such as Jean Renoir or Luchino Visconti, but also with many actresses of the New Wave. For us, Jeanne Moreau, who is celebrated this year at Lumière as an actress but also as a director, despite this facet of her career being less known, perfectly embodies what makes the relationship between Chanel and the cinema so special: a relationship of loyalty and friendship that is woven from the city to the screen with a sense of freedom and a unique elegance.

Several films by Louis Malle are presented at the festival. We remember the famous scene in ‘Elevator to the Gallows/Frantic’, where, accompanied by the music of Miles Davis, Jeanne Moreau strolls through the streets of Paris at night, wearing a Chanel suit. If this scene is an unforgettable symbol of freedom, it is because it is a new femininity that can be seen on the screen.

Today, emblematic actresses of world cinema such as Tilda Swinton, Penélope Cruz, Kristen Stewart and Marion Cotillard, ambassadors and friends of the House, continue to embody Chanel's creations, and it is perhaps also thanks to this heritage that they are so resolutely modern.

The recent Chanel fashion show was a tribute to Alain Resnais and his film ‘Last Year at Marienbad’. How does the cinema inspire your designs?

The show that Virginie Viard had imagined, and that all the fashion teams were able to put on, was a significant moment, with a collection and an actress, Kristen Stewart, who embodies a very cinematographic, very modern vision of allure, all movement and paradox. In addition to being the inspiration for this ready-to-wear collection, for Virginie Viard, Kristen Stewart's personality resonates with that of Gabrielle Chanel. Alain Resnais' ‘Last Year at Marienbad’ provided the setting and suspended a moment in time around the silhouettes of the models. We supported its restoration in 2018. The film won the Golden Lion in 1961 at the Venice Film Festival; Gabrielle Chanel had designed the costumes; Robbe-Grillet had written the screenplay. To see excerpts again, to experience this Spring-Summer 2023 fashion show in the heart of such a setting, accompanied by the haunting figure of Delphine Seyrig and a text written by Olivier Assayas, was to plunge into the mystery of cinema itself…

Interview by A. F.