CHANEL presents the ad campaign for the new fragrance GABRIELLE CHANEL ESSENCE, incarnated by Margot Robbie. Directed by renowned photographer Nick Knight, it sets the Academy Award nominated actress and producer Margot Robbie against a white and gold background that calls to mind a fragrance with a solar hue composed around a heart of four white flowers: tuberose, ylang-ylang, jasmine, and orange blossom. The luminous Margot Robbie is at the center of a whirlwind of white and gold veils that she twirls in an elegant dance to the music of Halo by Beyoncé.

An allegory of a radiant and fulfilled femininity, this campaign is the continuing story of the GABRIELLE CHANEL fragrance. Once again, it echoes the life and personality of Gabrielle Chanel, a pioneering woman who went against the diktats of society to choose her own personal and professional destiny. “I decided who I wanted to be, and that is who I am”* she said, reaffirming that nothing was more important to her than her freedom. Choosing who she wanted to be, and becoming that person.

After the birth of a rebellious woman who sees the horizon open towards her freedom, illustrated in the first chapter of the GABRIELLE CHANEL fragrance, we are witnessing her fulfillment in the second film. Shining with elegance, Margot Robbie incarnates a free woman who has discovered who she is and shows herself to the world, radiant and fulfilled. Still a rebel at heart, the woman who ran to freedom in the first opus now takes flight in a whirlwind, spinning the veils around her the way she manipulates rules and constraints with elegance and finesse. Confident and serene, she is in perfect harmony with her desires, in full control of her life and her destiny. Incredibly unique, she is a source of inspiration for women, as Gabrielle Chanel was and still is today. Margot Robbie is just as much a role model by her commitment to numerous causes including advocating for women in the film industry through her work at LuckyChap Entertainment. Solar and intense, the ad film is accompanied by a print campaign, also shot by Nick Knight. The photographer’s esthetic and sophisticated world is a perfect fit with GABRIELLE CHANEL ESSENCE, a fragrance tribute to the flowers dear to CHANEL.

* The Allure of Chanel, Paul Morand, trans. Euan Cameron, chap. “Adieu, not au revoir”, Paris, Pushkin Press, 2008, re-ed. 2012, ill. Karl Lagerfeld, p.199