Moving to a different beat
Alice Dellal, the new face of the Boy Chanel bag range adds an air of rockstar chic to the luxury French brand.
Alice Dellal, the new face of the Boy Chanel bag adds an
air of rockstar chic to the luxury French brand.
BRITISH model, IT girl and rocker, Alice Dellal, is Karl Lagerfeld’s latest ‘mannequin du soir’. With a sense of style that is generally masculine sans elements of being butch or unfeminine, the 24-year-old is the face of the Boy Chanel handbag, the epitome of a classic yet fashion forward handbag with an edgy twist.
Lagerfeld, who has been in the fashion industry for more than 50 years has been responsible for reinventing and rejuvenating the House of Chanel. Several icons are associated with Chanel, from the tweed jacket, pearls, the little black dress and the 2.55 bag among others.
His choice of Dellal isn’t surprising, she fits the aesthetics for the Boy Chanel collection, it being ultra-modern and different from the more feminine look of the brand’s signature bags.
The London-based Dellal has been in demand as much for her looks as for her off-beat punk style in recent years, with previous modelling jobs including turns on the catwalk for Vivienne Westwood and posing for lingerie label Agent Provocateur. Known for her half-shaved head, she is also well-known fashion photographer, Mario Testino’s muse.
The daughter of Brazilian model Andrea Dellal and sister of shoe designer Charlotte (of Charlotte Olympia fame), she’s also a drummer in an all-girl rock group called Thrush Metal.
Lagerfeld apparently had a crush on her after meeting her at a photoshoot several months ago. In a press release, Dellal says they first met during a shoot for his book,
The Little Black Jacket: “It was the first time I saw him behind the camera, working with everyone, and he was so nice and genuine. It was nice to be able to talk to him, sharing opinions about things… Then I got to work with him again for the shooting of the ad campaign, in an old beautiful French apartment, it was good because he knows what he wants - so it can be very quick - it was a really good experience and one that I’ll remember forever obviously.”
For Dellal, being chosen for Chanel is definitely an honour.
“It was so unexpected to be a Chanel icon… I would never think I’d do Chanel. I don’t want to compare myself to the others, but all of the Chanel ambassadresses that did a hand bag campaign, like Vanessa Paradis, Blake Lively, Lily Allen… they’re all different, they have different personalities. I feel honored, it’s really nice.
Of course one of the main things about being chosen for a fashion house is the individual’s fashion sense.
Dellal’s personal style is very much on comfort and being herself: “I like to be comfortable and I think men dress more comfortably than ladies, generally. They can just put a pair of jeans and a sweat shirt, I like doing that: comfort first.
The word modern kept cropping up and the strange thing is that Dellal herself doesn’t have an interest in technology and says she doesn’t even own a smartphone or want one in the future.
Very different from Lagerfeld, who is also an accomplished photographer and a selfconfessed technology user.
Recently, he shot Dellal and himself for a French Indie magazine called Les Inrockuptibles and in an excerpt from the interview by Marc Beauge, Lagerfeld talks on the topic of what “Modern” is about.
He says that it’s part of the era and the era won’t adapt itself to him, so it’s up to him to adapt himself to it.
“I used to send my drawings by fax. Now I send them straight to the studio by iphone or ipad. In my creative work I use the ipad enormously. Ever since it come into existence I’ve had twenty or thirty of them. I sometimes use them for photos but the quality lends better to videos. I regularly use it to make the Chanel web films.”
It’s the idea of modernity that’s part of his attraction to Dellal and of this he says: “Maybe that’s the height of modernity, maybe we all end up rejecting this technology. In any case, Alice Dellal has attitude. And attitude is a modern notion . Once upon a time, an elegant woman was welldressed. Today any Indian peasant girl can be ten times more chic than that.”
While Dellal is definitely not just any girl, she’s also never owned a Chanel before this.
“My mum loves Chanel. I used to just borrow some of her pieces but now, through my exciting experience with Chanel, I have my own stuff! Chanel means elegance, casual yet it’s sexy, cool and you can mix pieces with it to make it your own. That’s what I have learnt and why I like it, I can wear a tweed jacket with my jean shorts and be presented, comfortable. I loved my whole experience while shooting the campaign with Chanel as the days kept getting more magical than the last.
“It’s very easy to combine punk attitude and couture spirit: you just have to be yourself, keep your punk attitude and add a Chanel piece, it gives you that touch of class. It is a modern way to mix two styles.”
With the Boy bag being her first Chanel bag, Dellal says that her favourite is the one with the stingray, which comes in black leather with the chain.
“I think it will age very well. The older it gets, the nicer it looks. I love the boyish elements in it which makes it really rock. I can wear it day and night, in summer or winter which is important to me as I like wearing things throughout the year, and this bag is great for mixing and matching.i remember during shooting the ad campaign thinking ‘I could wear the bag everywhere except maybe at the beach – because someone could steal it!’
Dellal said that the most important quality about this bag is that she could see it following her throughout her life.
“There are people that throw things away every year but I can’t do that, I like to hold on to things as I feel every piece has a memory and now this bag will be a piece of memory from my working with Chanel all about me
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