There is a very specific kind of joy that comes from watching a fashion campaign and thinking. The CHANEL 25 campaign, directed by Michel Gondry and starring Margot Robbie, is exactly that kind of campaign, playful, intelligent, and layered with a nostalgia that rewards anyone paying attention.
Twenty-five years after Gondry directed Kylie Minogue’s now-iconic Come Into My World music video, the French director returns to a similar visual concept, this time with Robbie walking through the streets of Paris, encountering multiple versions of herself, each carrying a different version of the CHANEL 25 bag. The repetition is deliberate. The point is that the bag works for every version of the same woman, different looks, different moods, same essential object.
Minogue herself makes a cheeky cameo, crossing paths with Robbie in a Parisian neighbourhood, a detail that connects the campaign’s cultural dots without over-explaining them. It is a nod to 2002 that doesn’t require you to have been there to enjoy it. But if you were, it lands beautifully.
The Bag and the Photographs
Beyond the film, a series of images captured by Craig McDean expands the campaign’s visual universe, showing Robbie across multiple looks, from structured tailoring to relaxed styling, each paired with the CHANEL 25 and demonstrating how the bag adapts seamlessly across different contexts without losing its identity.
For the photoshoot, Robbie wore several pieces from Chanel’s latest collection by Matthieu Blazy, including a fully see-through midi skirt in a black-and-white crochet knit with floral-like clusters at each intersection, paired with a classic black top.The looks feel lived-in rather than staged, which is exactly the energy the bag itself is going for.
The Bag Itself
The CHANEL 25 takes its name from the year it launched, continuing the house’s tradition of iconic numerology, while tipping a hat to Coco Chanel’s lucky number five. The silhouette is supple and hobo-inspired, built on the house’s signature codes, quilted leather, a leather-interlaced chain, and the double C, with two external pockets that make it as functional as it is beautiful. The campaign spotlights the Mini in particular, available in deep burgundy, dark khaki, classic ecru, and more, across smooth and grained calfskin, denim, and canvas.
It is, in the truest sense, a bag for every version of you. Gondry understood that. Robbie wore it perfectly. And Kylie Minogue, 25 years on, showed up to make sure none of us missed the point.
