Taking on the Ritz
Chanel revisits its founder’s second home for a new campaign
“The Ritz is my house,” Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel used to say, and she wasn’t exaggerating – the founder of the eponymous Parisian fashion house and watch and jewellery maker actually lived at the Ritz Paris for 34 years. Unsurprisingly, given that she resided there for so long, she decorated her suite herself, featuring her signature black- and- white colour scheme and lots of Japanese lacquer work; the suite is still available to guests to this day. So at home did Mlle Chanel make herself at this most glamorous of hotels, in fact, that she was even known to use the staff entrance.
So, in honour of its founder’s residency at the Ritz and the brand’s long association with it, the hotel was the obvious location for the new video to publicise the new black ceramic models in Chanel’s Code Coco collection. Released in September, the video features French actresses and models Alma Jodorowsky and Alice Dellal, Japanese ballerina Nozomi Iijima and Korean- American model and DJ Soo Joo Park. The four of them take possession of the Ritz Paris, occupying both its public and private spaces, settling down to do everything from reading a book by the reception desk to helping themselves from the kitchen, and generally making themselves thoroughly at home in much the same manner as Coco Chanel once did.
The watch the video promotes, Code Coco, is a tribute to the timeless but constantly changing Chanel aesthetic. It is distinguished by the arresting square shape of its dial, inspired by the clasp of Chanel’s 2.55 bag, and matched by a square pattern etched across the bracelet. That dial is sliced in two with a three- part horizontal steel bar, the lower section indicating the time and the upper one playing host to a rather elegant single princess- cut diamond.
The new black ceramic version of the Code Coco joins the existing pure steel iteration, previously unveiled at Coco Chanel’s other home, her apartment at 31 Rue Cambon in Paris; they come with a matching black ceramic or steel bracelet respectively. Both the black ceramic and steel models are available in a relatively unadorned version, but also in one that features 52 brilliant- cut diamonds weighing 0.63 carat on the bezel – the perfect companion for a day out at the Ritz.