Why are Russian influencers chopping up their Chanel bags with scissors?

Russian Model, Victoria Bonya, chops up her Chanel bag

The uber fashion house has become a scapegoat for Russian celebrities and influencers to protest luxury fashion’s ‘discriminating’ economic sanctions agains the Russian people.

Russian influencers are cutting up their Chanel handbags on social media in angry protest over restrictions imposed by the luxury French fashion label that mean they can no longer buy its products abroad. Chanel confirmed to the BBC this week that it was halting sales of its clothes, perfume, accessories and other items to customers who were intending to use the products in Russia, as a response to President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. 

According to BBC, the French fashion house confirmed in a statement that it was complying with a ban initiated by Switzerland and the EU pertaining to the sale of luxury items to people who intend to use them in Russia.

“This is why we have rolled out a process to ask clients for whom we do not know the main residency to confirm that the items they are purchasing will not be used in Russia,” Chanel said. Chanel has already shut its stores within Russia, as have many other brands.

Chanel’s ban enraged Russian influencers like Victoria Bonya and Marina Ermoshkina, who have 9.3M and 300k followers respectively, so they are now filming themselves destroying their Chanel purses. They are now accusing the fashion house of “Russophobia” and the attempt to “cancel Russia.”

This week, Anna Kalashnikova, a singer and actor with 2.4 million followers on Instagram, posted about her own experience with “discrimination”, when she walked into a Chanel store in Dubai, discovering that the brand no longer sold its bags to Russians. As a response, the influencers have made a symbolic gesture to the French fashion house by cutting up their handbags with kitchen scissors and garden shears.

Russian TV presenter, Marina Ermoshkina slices up her Chanel bag 

 “I have to say that Chanel does not respect its clients, so why do we have to respect Chanel?” Bonya said to her 9.3 million followers, standing in a sun-dappled balcony before slicing a black leather purse in half and flinging it emphatically out of frame. If this rhetoric sounds familiar, that's because similar words have been spoken by Putin, claiming penalties were being put in place irregardless of the war in Ukraine, with the sole purpose of suffocating “the development of Russia… just because we exist”. 

Kalashnikova, who said Chanel’s actions were “supporting fascism” and Elvina Borovkova, a 24-year-old social media star, who said it was impossible that Russian soldiers could be raping Ukrainian women because “Russian women are the most beautiful women in the world”. “Do you really think they need Ukrainian women? It’s scary to even touch them, full of venereal diseases,” she said in a now-viral video.

As a French company, Chanel has agreed to comply with the European Union’s export ban on luxury goods. But beyond closing its Russian boutiques and complying with EU-regulated trade sanction laws, Chanel is also one of many luxury brands that have been screening shoppers, with some customers reporting that they have been asked to sign a document stating that they will not take their purchases to Russia. Given the atrocities that the Kremlin continues to inflict onto Ukrainian citizens, the “protest” and “plight” of these influencers rings dissonant.

This kind of act has been employed as protest before, like when people removed the Swoosh from their Nike clothes and destroyed sneakers in reaction to Colin Kaepernick’s Nike campaign. As journalist Tim Blanks noted, these individuals seem “too busy chopping up her handbag to protest the chopping up of innocent men, women and children in Ukraine. The Putinistas, both in Russia and in the West (that’s you, fucking Tucker), coughing up their fur balls of faux rage from their pinnacles of privilege, are truly the most execrable examples of the species.”

DJ Katya Guseva carves up her Chanel handbag

Russian influencers staying safe in luxurious places all around Europe don’t seem to acknowledge the propaganda of their home country and even spread it by showing no compassion for the people of Ukraine reeks of the hypocritical privilege of oligarchy. One can hardly blame Chanel for not wanting to be associated with such soulless vapidity. The brand clearly understands the power of image and is choosing to dissociate itself from influencers spreading propaganda.

Chanel’s little black jacket – the ultimate in utilitarian chic?

Coco Chanel’s classic tweed jacket has transcended fashion to become a style classic. Chanel’s little black jacket has grown to become a symbol of elegance, femininity and power, making it a staple in the wardrobes of women across the globe.

1950s Chanel suit

Dior New Look jacket and dress from 1950

The ubiquitous jacket has been worn by children and pensioners, hip-hop artists and ballet dancers, fashion editors and nuns. It is often seen dressed up as often as it is dressed down. As easily worn with a matching Chanel skirt as it is with frayed faded jeans.

One of the jackets ultimate selling points therefore is its versatility – versatility being something inherent to the philosophy of the little black jacket’s creator, Coco Chanel. With the design dating back to the early 50s, the boxy shape was strikingly different to the cinched-in waist of the post-war New Look fashion of the time – the look propagated by Christian Dior.

Coco Chanel and Jeanne Moreau in Chanel skirt suits with her signature boxy jacket, 1960

To ensure the jacket always hung well, a brass chain was positioned around its bottom hem. This was then neatly concealed by the silk lining. ‘My jackets look just as good inside as out,’ Coco Chanel would often proclaim. Believing that each design feature should fulfil a function, she added pockets that women could put their hands in — something only done by men at that time. Similarly, the buttonholes were such that the jacket could actually be buttoned up and unbuttoned as desired, for comfort.

The use of braid emphasised the jacket line, pocket edges and cuffs. The visual impact of the piece was enhanced by trimming it with petersham ribbon, looped braid or countless other variations, which were sometimes cut or even sewn directly onto the selvedge to achieve an ‘unfinished’ fringe effect.

Worn by Jane Birkin with faded denim

Boxy, structured and capable of being buttoned top to bottom, the garment’s elegance lies in the freedom of movement it allows — no shoulder pads, no bust darts and only a single centre seam in the back. Writing in her biography of Chanel, Justine Picardie describes it as an example of how the designer was paving a ‘way of dressing that was masculine in its unruffled dignity, while remaining true to its creator's idea of femininity’. Chanel’s boxy cut allowed for movement, was less restrictive, but was still incredibly flattering to the female silhouette without clinging to it. Along with Paul Poiret, Chanel was credited with liberating women from the constraints of the ‘corseted silhouette’ and popularizing the acceptance of a sportive, casual chic as the feminine standard in the post-World War I era. This jacket, Picardie argues, showed she actually wasn’t very interested in fashion. Instead, as her much-quoted adage ‘fashion passes, style remains’ implies, she wanted to create clothes that could be worn for ever  – clothes that would never date.

The versatility of the Little Black Jacket

Lagerfeld, when head of Chanel, deformalised it by restructuring the skirt suit, playing with the shape and continuously altering it during his reign as head of the design house. Interpretations have included Claudia Schiffer's famous turn on the runway in a 90's leather miniskirted version, while previously the gregarious 80s had seen a power shouldered interpretation. The jacket has evolved to take on every guise that each decade has thrown at it. More current visions have included grungy fraying and cropped shapes on recent runways.

Kanye West does his take on the Little Black Jacket, by Lagerfeld

Lagerfeld’s reinvention of her famous jacket then, would appear to have fitted very much into her ethos. Taking over at the brand in 1982, 11 years after Coco’s death, he revitalised a fashion house that had become a stalwart of the twinset and pearl brigade into something that was once again fresh and modern, yet with the archive still central to its image. Coco staples such as pearls, quilting, the camelia, the little black dress, monochrome and, of course, the jacket are part of the Chanel heritage that he continues to return to again and again for his new collections. When Lagerfeld stepped into Coco’s design shoes, the fashion house’s image was inextricably entwined with the potent image of a certain type of ‘lady who lunches’.

A child wears the Little Black Jacket, by Lagerfeld

Vanessa Paradis dresses down her Chanel tweed jacket with blue jeans

This constant reinterpretation and reimagining of Chanel’s stalwart ‘symbols’ is a strategy that appears to be working. Certain iconic images – the bag, the pearls, the LBD, the tweed jacket, have become so ingrained as markers of style and luxury that we have now reached a stage where we can imbue them with post-modern sensibilities. You can grungify a Chanel jacket and make it cool – the delicate pearls can be magnified to enormous balls and become playful and young. Because the pieces are so iconic and so recongnisable, they allow us to make a post-modern take on them and make them ‘cool’.

If, in Coco's day, Jackie Kennedy (the twee pink bouclé suit she wore in Dallas on November 22, 1963 when her husband was assassinated has become a part of history – although Lagerfeld reveals in the book of the exhibition that it was in fact a fake, ‘a line by line copy by [Oleg] Cassini’) and Wallis Simpson were Chanel ambassadors, a Chanel jacket is now in the wardrobe of equivalent much copied fashion icons from Alexa Chung to Beyoncé to Vanessa Paradis to Keira Knightley.

Actress Rachel Bilson in her Chanel jacket

For film director Sofia Coppola, the jacket ‘is a classic that goes with everything. You can wear it anytime, day or night, casual or dressy.’ Actress Kirsten Dunst says the jacket represents comfortable elegance and is the first real blazer for women. ‘You can throw on a Chanel jacket with anything and look good. When you own something of this luxury you don’t give it away, you pass it down to the next generation,’ she says.

For Japanese actress Rinko Kikuchi who shot to fame in the movie Babel, the jacket celebrates both independence and fragility. ‘The little black jacket survives the ages because of its simplicity  and versatility. I can wear it with formal attire and change into jeans after the party,’ she says.

Actress Diane Kruger in an embellished version of the Chanel Little Black Jacket

For Karl Lagerfeld, Coco Chanel’s legacy remained one of the classics in the industry. ‘Some things never go out of fashion: jeans, the white shirt and the Chanel jacket,’ he said.

Victoria Beckham in her Chanel Little Black Jacket

Whereas it was movie stars such as Gwynneth Paltrow who began wearing the jacket with jeans in the early 90s, showcasing a new take on how to wear the jacket. Today, it’s fashion icons such as Alexa Chung who often collaborates with Lagerfeld and serves as an ambassador for the brand. The jacket has moved from Gwynneth’s world of privilege and 5th Avenue princess, to an edgier, funkier, more fashion led world. Alexa’s tomboysih style mirrors even that of Coco Chanel, and she appears to enjoy playing with the jacket’s iconic status – demonstrating its incredible versatility as both a high fashion upscale staple, to a more irreverant post-modern statement piece. She wears the Chanel little black jacket one day with a kooky prim hairband and skirt as a nod to Chanel’s prim heritage, and on another day with no skirt at all and suspenders on show.

Kate Moss has showcased the jacket in an assortment of colours

As a result, in the past few years the boxy tweed jacket has infiltrated the high street with affordable copies by stores such as Zara and Mango becoming bestsellers for those who appreciate the style and versatility of the jacket, but can’t afford the designer price tag.

Alexa Chung incorporates a Chanel Little Black Jacket into her own modern, quirky style wearing it (below) with just a shirt and suspenders

Coco was, however, her own best advertisement. She wore her trademark jacket well into her old age.  While the French brand might, in most people’s heads, be associated with that trademark double-C logo, pearls and quilted bags, the little black jacket is another classic well worth its place in fashion history.

Carine Roitfield as Coco Chanel, by Lagerfeld

The genuine article: how to buy a vintage designer bag

 Chanel’s 2.55 bag and Hermès’s Kelly and Birkin models are three of the world’s most coveted designer handbags owing to their expert craftsmanship and exclusivity. Investing in one of these luxury accessories via a vintage seller is not only a way of securing a piece of fashion history to pass down to future generations, but also of championing a sustainable approach to shopping – one that will ultimately help fashion advance towards a greener future.

“Fashion shouldn’t feel disposable,” British Vogue editor-in-chief Edward Enninful said of his decision to dress Taylor Swift in archive Chanel for the January 2020 cover. “The best clothes can be worn time and time again and have the quality of both design and craftsmanship to ensure their staying power.” Indeed, as Coco Chanel once said, “Fashion passes, style remains.”

Here, British Vogue speaks to seven vintage experts from consignment websites, bricks-and-mortar treasure troves for the retro obsessed, and luxury e-tailers to find out how to source an authentic designer bag to buy now and wear forever.

Trust your source

“The first, and arguably the most important, thing to consider when purchasing a designer vintage piece is to evaluate the source,” says Seth Weisser, co-founder and CEO of What Goes Around Comes Around, which has been one of New York’s premiere purveyors of vintage for almost three decades. “Do your research on the seller or company you’re buying from and be wary of marketplaces where you don’t have access to information on the seller. The peace of mind you have when you shop with a trusted source makes the process so much more enjoyable and eliminates the stress of having to attempt to authenticate a piece on your own.”

Research the brand

“Each brand has unique codes which permit a buyer to verify the authenticity,” says Sophie Hersan, co-founder and fashion director of fashion consignment platform Vestiaire Collective. “For example, Hermès uses famous stitches called ‘piqûres sellier’, which are hand sewn by craftsmen. The irregularities or imperfections are recognisable compared to machine work.”

“Most high-end designer brands, like Louis Vuitton and Gucci, will include a date code or serial number somewhere within the bag,” explains Oliver Purnell, the owner of Depop shop @oliversarchive. “Usually they’re quite hard to find within the inner lining. A lot of counterfeit vintage Fendi SAS model bags are currently in circulation, none of which have serial numbers.”

Google is your friend for these certification steps. “Compare care labels to online images of real versions to identify any inconsistencies and red flags,” advises Sharon Wolter-Ferguson, founder and CEO of Hardly Ever Worn It (HEWI).

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Stylish films featuring Chanel and Givenchy

Fashion and film have been inextricably linked for the past century, with designers drawing inspiration from the silver screen and auteurs going to great lengths to secure the perfect costumes for their characters. Would Holly Golightly have become a pop culture sensation without Hubert de Givenchy’s sophisticated designs? And what would Belle de Jour be without Yves Saint Laurent or Barbarella without Paco Rabanne? Below, Vogue presents 14 of the best designer and director collaborations of all time.

Raf Simons for Jil Sander in I Am Love

From Call Me by Your Name to A Bigger Splash, Luca Guadagnino’s films are packed with stylish characters – none more so than the 2009 romantic drama I Am Love, which stars the director’s long-time muse Tilda Swinton as a woman who marries into the upper echelons of Milanese society. Raf Simons, then creative director of Jil Sander, provided Swinton’s wardrobe: boxy shift dresses, jewel-tone knits and sleek coats that reflect the refined minimalism that was a hallmark of his tenure at the house.


Rodarte in Black Swan

It was Black Swan’s Oscar-winning leading lady Natalie Portman who introduced director Darren Aronofsky to Kate and Laura Mulleavy, the sisters behind Rodarte. While costume designer Amy Westcott (who previously worked with Aronofsky on The Wrestler) created most of the film’s looks, she collaborated with the design duo on a number of elaborate tutus, including the feathered confections Portman wears on stage in the final scene. The designers’ mood boards referenced everything from the day-to-day wardrobes of dancers in the American Ballet Theatre to films like The Double Life of Veronique and The Piano Teacher.


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This Chanel Mule Won Fashion Month

Each season, there's one accessory that seems to capture the street style zeitgeist.

Last season it was Gucci's backless flat loafer. And while this style was seen on the feet of the great and good of the fashion pack throughout the latest round of fashion weeks, it has been usurped by a newer, peppier shoe sibling: the Chanel heeled mule.

With their signature black toe cap and intricate pearl-and-snake-adorned heel, they made their catwalk debut at last December's Metiers d'Art show in Rome.

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Chanel is the latest brand to turn its back on fur

Score another victory for animal rights groups: Chanel is the latest fashion giant to swear off fur and exotic animal skins from reptiles. The French brand announced its cruelty-free approach Monday after pressure from animal advocates, who have swayed designers, cities, magazines, and fashion shows to ban fur and similar items in recent years.

In a statement, a Chanel spokesperson said the company has turned away from fur and the like for ethical reasons.

“At Chanel, we are continually reviewing our supply chains to ensure they meet our expectations of integrity and traceability,” the official said. “In this context, it is our experience that it is becoming increasingly difficult to source exotic skins which match our ethical standards.”

PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) applauded Chanel’s move, arguing that apparel made from animals is unnecessary today, thanks to technological advancements that “have made faux fur and vegan leather nearly indistinguishable from animal pelts and skins.”

A slew of fashion brands have moved away from fur
Fur was once seen as the epitome of glamour, but the movement to sway the public not to wear animal pelts and skins has grown markedly since the 1980s. Karl Lagerfeld, who became Chanel’s creative director in 1983, played a direct role in marketing these products as must-haves for the elite. While working at Fendi, another luxury fashion house, he used the mole, rabbit, and squirrel pelts in his designs, according to CNN.

But today the tide is changing. Since 2016, high-end fashion brands such as Gucci, Burberry, Michael Kors, Tom Ford, DKNY, Furla, Versace, and Giorgio Armani have stopped designing fur products or have announced plans to phase out fur. Stella McCartney, Vivienne Westwood, Calvin Klein, and Ralph Lauren are also fur-free, and London Fashion Week made headlines in September by announcing that no fur would be featured in any collection. And this year, cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles decided to ban the sale of fur.

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Marilyn Monroe on Chanel no 5

What do I wear in bed? Chanel No. 5!' 

These are the words famously spoken by the Hollywood legend Marilyn Monroe. 

In the 1950s the glamour of Chanel No. 5 was reignited by the celebrity whose unsolicited endorsement of the fragrance provided invaluable publicity.

But many have never heard the starlet utter the statement that forever fused the blonde and the fragrance house. 

The 2-minute video opens with a still image of the blonde beauty lying nude in bed as the question 'What do you wear to bed?' flashes up on the screen.

The video then states: 'We may never know when she said the phrase for the first time' as it goes on to unveil the lost footage in a tantalising build-up chronicling the timeline of her famous phrase.

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Luxury accessories that hold their value over time

Luxury fashion items are more often than not considered to be an indulgence that one can do without. However, the term; ‘investment buys’ make buying such items all the more worth it. Like art, some luxury accessories can retain, or even gain value over time. These five luxury items have sealed their status as timeless and iconic must-haves.

HERMÈS BIRKIN BAG
The Hermès Birkin bag is one of the most loved and perhaps one of the most hard to get. This exclusive nature and restriction in supply of the bag creates the extreme scarcity around the bag, thereby increasing demand. This high demand can be attributed to the bags being able to hold or gain value over time.

The Hermes Birkin

THE CHANEL FLAP BAG
Investing in the iconic Chanel Flap bag is safer than investing in the stock market as it has consistently outperformed the S&P 500 making it the bag to hold on to. Since 2008 the prices of the Chanel Flap bag have increased with more than €1,400. These prices will continue to rise despite external variables such as volatility in the economy and fashion trends. The constant rise in pricing will earn you a good return in investment if you do decide to sell.

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What the ever-evolving LBD says about American culture

Coco Chanel making adjustments to a dress

The precursor of the “little black dress” was anything but little. Queen Victoria’s mourning dresses—which she donned every day for 40 years following the death of her husband, Prince Albert—were sumptuously designed with layers of thick, floor-trailing fabric. Although black was associated with mourning as early as the 14th century, during the Victorian period the practice became standardized. Grieving Victorian women would trade their frills for heavily trimmed black dresses, the more ostentatious, the better. (The pricier the mourning outfit, the more you missed your dead loved ones—or so the thinking went.)

With the start of World War I almost a century later, it became more difficult for women to uphold this lavish dress code. The Illustrated London News reported in June 1918 that “there is not a single person who is not suffering family and financial losses that make display and frivolous expense seem like folly.” Rather than abandoning black entirely, however, women referenced spreads in Vogue starting in 1916 and 1917 that detailed appropriate mourning-wear during times of shortage. Hemlines began to rise, and veils now framed the face instead of covering it.

And then, in 1926, black was suddenly liberated from its ties to death. Vogue featured a sketch of Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel’s black crêpe de chine sheath with the caption “The Chanel ‘Ford’ – the frock that all the world will wear.” Henry Ford’s Model Ts were black to expedite the assembly process, since black paint dried more quickly than other hues. In 1909, before Model Ts occupied garages across America, Ford allegedly quipped: “Any customer can have a car painted any color he wants, so long as it is black.” Together, the frock that all the world would wear and the car that all the world would drive helped to modernize the color black.

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