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Nicole Kidman's latest Hollywood blockbuster (all 180 seconds of it)
By Charlotte Edwardes, The Telegraph
21 November 2004
'It's a film, not an advert," the Chanel publicist says, firmly.
"As he says himself, Baz Luhrmann doesn't do adverts."
As she speaks, she presses play on the DVD and Nicole Kidman rushes gazelle-like into frame. She turns to face the camera, her alabaster skin flushed the same colour as her cascading gown, her eyes round with panic.
She is being pursued by paparazzi in a cityscape lined with billboards bearing her image.
As the cameras close in, Kidman ducks into a taxi to escape. "Drive," she orders, breathless and desperate, before turning to notice a sultry Brazilian beside her.
The publicist whispers to me: "It's a fairy-tale romance."
This is No 5: The Film, a three-minute movie or the world's most expensive advertisement, depending on your stance.
Chanel argues that it is "a creative first. The film to revolutionise advertising."
At £18 million, it is certainly a first in terms of budget. Miss Kidman's £2 million fee alone is equal to the entire cost of the Oscar-nominated 1995 film Trainspotting.
Although shot in five days in Sydney, Australia, No 5: The Film took "many more months to complete".
Its premiere on Channel Four last night was preceded by advertisements - "Chanel invites you to a television premiere this evening at 9.20pm" - and was even included in television listings.
The fuss surrounding the "film" has been such that journalists were forced to sign confidentiality agreements before being allowed into "screenings" at the company's swish Bond Street offices.
"It differs from a traditional advert in many respects," explains the publicist, smoothing the skirt on her immaculate black-and-white outfit. "For a start, there aren't any shots of a bottle of Chanel No 5. The whole project was executed as a film."
Certainly it bears the hallmarks of a Hollywood film. It is beautifully shot on high-gloss celluloid, has costumes designed by Karl Lagerfeld and a score by Debussy.
It reprises the successful partnership of Moulin Rouge!, which Luhrmann directed, but this time Kidman plays the "most beautiful and most famous woman in the world".
As Mark Lawson, the presenter of Radio 4's Front Row, puts it: "You sense that Luhrmann was pushing at an open door when he pitched that to her."
Kidman's character briefly escapes her pitied lot after meeting Rodrigo Santoro, who plays the Bohemian intellectual, in the back of a taxi. In Luhrmann's words, he is "a young Gabriel Garcia Marquez", who lives on the Lower East Side, reads Shakespeare, plays a guitar and types on an old-fashioned Olivetti.
Santoro's character doesn't know who Kidman is (despite the billboards) and she "lies", telling him: "I'm a dancer."
To the strains of Debussy's Clair de Lune, the couple cavort on his rooftop garret, backdropped by an enormous double-C logo.
After four days, her secretary appears as an apparition in their bedroom: "You must return to the all-important event tomorrow," he tells Kidman, in faintly menacing tones. And so she does, emboldened, to face fame anew on life's red carpet. Santoro is left wistful, remembering only "her kiss, her smile, her perfume".
It is a romantic comedy without the comedy.
The film finishes with one minute of rolling credits - citing make-up artists and riggers. It is followed by a 25-minute "making of" documentary, complete with footage of Kidman giggling coquettishly with Lagerfeld during fittings in a London hotel room and Luhrmann pitching what sounds like an entirely separate movie about Coco Chanel at the company headquarters in rue Cambon, Paris.
Contrary to Chanel's argument, by making this film Luhrmann is not fighting the tide of directors crossing from advertising to features, but joining the prestigious ranks of other Hollywood auteurs.
Michael Mann, the director of Heat, teamed up with Benicio Del Toro for Mercedes-Benz in 2002 and Anthony Minghella, the director of The English Patient, directed a television campaign for Guinness. Before them, David Lynch and even Sir Alfred Hitchcock have sullied their art for the adman's penny.
Lesley Ali, the creative director at WCRS advertising agency, believes that by producing such a big-budget advert, Chanel has not gone against the grain but merely upped the ante in what has become a trend in the luxury-goods sector.
"Ultimately, the film, like an advert, reflects what the product is and in that way it can't be called revolutionary," she says. "Any product needs to have its values represented, whether it is a three-minute film or a four-second spiral, it still has a brand value that it wants to project. If Chanel thinks this validates its brand value to the target market, that's great. If everyone did that formula, however, it wouldn't be exclusive, so I don't think it will revolutionise the face of advertising. It's just one way of doing it.
"Obviously a lot of thought has been put into this: they believe this is a high-end product and a really beautiful, glossy film makes sense for that product." It is, she adds, not a departure but thoroughly in keeping with its previous campaigns. "Their last No 5 advert, with Estella Warren playing Little Red Riding Hood, was also a two-minute film."
Another advertising executive argues that Chanel has gone to such lengths out of desperation to reposition No 5: "Its image has slipped. It might be one of the biggest-selling scents in the world, but it's considered to be the scent you buy your mistress in the airport or your grandma for her birthday."
In that way, Chanel has merely revived an age-old policy: making its brand synonymous with Hollywood glamour. The scent, launched in 1921, first scored this coup in 1954 when it was allied with Marilyn Monroe.
She claimed, with outrageous seductiveness, that all she wore to bed were: "A couple of drops of Chanel No 5." Later, Chanel repeated that success with the Catherine Deneuve, Ali MacGraw and Carole Bouquet.
Jenny McCartney, The Sunday Telegraph film critic, argues that turning Kidman and Chanel into one uber-brand serves both parties: "Actors who advertise an everyday product - such as a vacuum cleaner, say - run the risk of having their image dulled by association," she says.
"Kidman has done just the opposite with this campaign: she's been very canny. It is such an unusually long-established, acutely glamorous brand - which in the past has been linked to stars - that it actually lends her lustre by association.
"When Luhrmann's line in the advertisement refers to her as 'the most famous woman in the world', it is surely designed to define and flatter Kidman herself, every bit as much as the character she is playing."
As for its status as a movie, No 5: The Film, has one serious flaw: to squeeze into Britain's tight advertising schedules over Christmas, it has been ruthlessly cut to 30 seconds.
"But it is still a film," the spokesman insists. "It retains the plot of the film, its just an edited version."
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Scent of a Woman
By A. O. Scott, New York Times
21 November 2004
BAZ Luhrmann does not have an arch bone in his body: he embraces the garish cornucopia of a century and more of popular culture with a frank romanticism that is disarming and sometimes a little alarming, finding ever more sophisticated ways to be naïve. His new television spot for Chanel No. 5, a tribute to the golden glory of Nicole Kidman, is a two-minute distillation of the essence of Luhrmannism, a concise, affecting précis of just about everything he has done so far in movies and on the stage.
Which is not meant to slight him, or the advertisement, which packs a mighty swirl of swoony glamour into two very expensive-looking minutes. There is a story as well: an elegant, quintessentially Luhrmannesque vignette about the charmed encounter between Bohemia and media celebrity. The two are neighbors, of course, in a fantasy metropolis that stylizes Manhattan in much the way that "Moulin Rouge" confected Paris. A scruffy, poetical fellow (Olivier Martinez) sits on his roof, gazing moonily at the moon and the flashbulb-bright city below. Then, as black-and-white paparazzi snaps fade into color, we glimpse Ms. Kidman, trailing a pink-feathered gown and escaping from the crush of fame into a taxi where that poet, her soon-to-be lover, the only person in the world who does not know who she is, is waiting.
It turns out she is the most famous something or other in the world - her precise profession is artfully buried in the breathless news reports of her disappearance. And even as we know the frenzy of renown will claim her once again, the commercial indulges the conceit that what famous people crave most is obscurity and that the people who love them most are the ones oblivious to their fame. This is a wonderfully seductive notion, since it means that if you watch the story unfold in a state of blasé indifference - Nicole Kidman, Chanel perfume, who cares? - you are actually participating in it most fully. You are, in fact, its ideal audience, the one that might see through all the superficial glamour and appreciate the star for her real, unfamous self.
And of course, since this fantasy is hers as well as yours, she will love you back. Ms. Kidman, regal and ethereal in her bone-china blondness, nonetheless holds onto the populist graciousness that gave the great movie goddesses of old their heart-stopping incandescence. After her interlude, dancing on the rooftops with her scruffy beau, she will return to the adoring, faceless public, confident that someone up there would still love her if she gave it all up and took a job, say, selling perfume over a department store counter. That someone, pausing over the remote in the middle of "E.R.," unshaven and indifferent, is you.
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Chanel screening is a draw
By Jacqueline Fitzgerald, Chicago Tribune
3 November 2004
Audible gasps from the audience emerged when the pale-pink strapless dress flashed on the screen.
The Karl Lagerfeld confection, with 394 feet of tulle, was just one of the ensembles Nicole
Kidman wears in "No. 5: The Film" a new two-minute commercial for the famous Chanel fragrance.
About 100 people gathered at the Chicago Chanel store last week to screen the ad for which Kidman reunited with "Moulin Rouge" film director Baz Luhrmann. Guests also saw a 30-minute flick about making the spot.
While "Chanel No. 5 is part of the story, it's not what the story is about," assures Luhrmann in the behind-the-scenes film.
Kidman, it's rumored, has earned about $12 million from the campaign for the 83-year-old fragrance.
"Nicole represents not only the highest standard of elegance, but also embodies the spirit and modernity of Coco Chanel," said Arie L. Kopelman, vice chairman of Chanel Inc.
Versions of the commercial at varying lengths are playing in movie theaters and will air on TV starting Nov. 11. Print ads, which use images from the two-minute film, run until December.
Drawing on art imitating life, the film features Kidman playing a high-powered actress who stumbles into a brief affair with a struggling writer, played by hunky Brazilian actor Rodrigo Santoro.
The fantasy fare seemed a welcome escape in the last few days before the election. "It captures all the aspects of a good affair," said Denise Stein. "It stays with you forever."
Or, as fellow Chicagoan Aria Knee put it: "It's never a bad day to be Nicole."
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Making $cents: Kidman helps stir Chanel No. 5 buzz
By Kathleen Wexler, Herald.com
27 October 2004
PROFILES IN STYLE
How do executives stir up buzz for a product that hasn't changed in 83 years?
Why, make a commercial, one starring a woman too beautiful to forget, too bland to offend and, above all, too famous to ignore . . . Nicole Kidman, of course.
Chanel executives knew the Aussie was exactly the actress for a high-budget ad for No. 5, a perfume first released in 1921. The French couture house had put other actresses on television, including Catherine Deneuve, Carol Bouquet and Estella Warren, but never anyone with the international gravitational pull of a Nicole Kidman.
Last week, the two-minute ad directed by Baz Luhrmann was unveiled for a packed house at the Chanel boutique in Bal Harbour, ensuring Chanel customers will feel like insiders when shortened versions of the ad hit the TV next month.
''The choice of Nicole Kidman and No. 5 is that of two incredible icons,'' said Laurie Palma, senior vice president of fragrance and Internet marketing for Chanel. ``She seemed like the most natural selection.''
The whirlwind plot centers on an actress pursued by -- who else -- paparazzi, as she races through a stylized Times Square and jumps into a cab, only to find herself seated next to a handsome stranger. Whisked away to his simple rooftop apartment, ''the most famous actress in the world'' spends the night laughing, kissing and falling in love.
Ultimately, she returns to her clamoring fans. But as she climbs an outdoor staircase, she looks back over her shoulder at his darkened silhouette perched on an industrial Chanel logo above his apartment. She meets his gaze with a smile, a charm in the shape of the No. 5 dangling over her back.
This, the ad asserts, is the embodiment of Chanel No. 5: A gazelle-like beauty, vulnerable and rich, seductive and adored. Now, will it sell perfume?
''It's about memory and being memorable, about making that indelible impression on someone, changing someone's life or changing someone's emotions,'' Palma said. ``She was such an extraordinary woman, this man will remember her forever -- her kiss, her smile, her perfume.''
The ''film,'' as Chanel executives refer to it, will air on cable TV beginning in November, followed by commercial TV and -- a first for Chanel -- in movie theaters. Chanel hopes it resonates with women in their 30s as much as those in their 60s.
''With any brand that's as venerable as Chanel, you always hope to continually reach the next generation and at the same time keep your consumer,'' Palma said.
The Miami crowd, treated to fine chocolate and champagne, was one of four selected nationwide to view a fascinating half-hour documentary about the making of the ad, followed by the two-minute ad itself.
''We picked boutiques in top VIP markets,'' said Rosemarie Sterling, Chanel's executive director of public relations for fragrance and beauty products. The documentary also aired in Chicago, Los Angeles and Dallas, and its footage is mesmerizing -- more gratifying, even, than the ad.
Lost in the hyper-condensed, 120-second spot is the reverie quality the documentary evokes so well, much of it shot dreamily out-of-focus and with the ethereal score of Clair de Lune by Claude Debussy. Luhrmann, who also directed Kidman in Moulin Rouge, discusses his vision, Karl Lagerfeld sketches the divine dresses and Kidman, in a moment of exuberance, grabs her rear as she prances around in Lagerfeld's pink gown, which resembles frothing rapids.
While the TV spots are meant to make new fans of Chanel, the boutique viewings were held with a different clientel in mind: the repeat customer. Hence the complimentary Chanel No. 5 that was handed out in Bal Harbour.
As Sterling noted, perfume lasts only so long.
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The sweet smell of success
The Times Online
24 October 2004
Nicole Kidman, couture
frocks and £17m worth of diamonds — Chanel's new perfume ad promises to be
more of a cultural event than a commercial. Believe the hype, says Claudia Croft
Some adverts are more than just a hard sell. Ferrero Rocher's ambassador's
reception, the PG Tips chimps, Smash's Martians, Leonard Rossiter spilling
Cinzano over Joan Collins — all are memorable television moments. They have a
life beyond the 30-second show time. How many of you took a bath while wearing
your Levi’s after watching that ad?
The marketing men have a name for such a phenomenon. When a puff becomes more
talked-about than the product it promotes, they call it "water-cooler
advertising". Right now, the nation’s favourite advert features the
Guinness horses, but after November 12, all that might change. Because that’s
when the new Chanel No 5 ad hits cinema screens, with a first airing on
television the following week.
Starring Nicole Kidman, it’s the first commercial ever directed by Baz
Luhrmann, whose credits include the Oscar-winning Moulin Rouge! — and in
advertising terms, it's an epic. The full-length version runs for two minutes
(four times longer than a regular ad), with production values that are more akin
to those of a big-budget Hollywood extravaganza than your average life-insurance
infomercial. The project spent six months in post-production, and there is even
a "making of" documentary to accompany it.
Kidman's costumes, designed by Karl Lagerfeld and hand-stitched in the Chanel
couture salon, all had to be made in duplicate. She wears £17m worth of real
gems in the film, which, with its in-depth characterisations and sweeping
Debussy soundtrack, plays like a trailer for an epic movie that has never been
made. The whole thing doesn’t so much smell of Chanel No 5 (you don’t even
see the bottle) as reek of money. It is rumoured to have cost £5m to make. But
add the cost of buying two minutes of prime television airtime in the run-up to
Christmas and you see that this isn't just a commercial, it's a megamercial.
In terms of artistic vision, cost and impact, the film is so ground-breaking
that it isn't really fair to call it an advert. It’s a cultural event that,
when shown for the first time on British television (during Channel 4’s
screening of Moulin Rouge! on November 20), will be listed in the TV guide, just
like the regular programmes.Can you imagine setting your video for the Gold
Blend couple? In the long history of water-cooler advertising, this is a first.
If you tune in, you’ll see what all the fuss is about. Kidman plays "the
most famous woman in the world". Arriving at a glamorous event, she's
pursued by paparazzi. She bolts from her limo and ends up in the back of a cab
with the sexy Brazilian actor Rodrigo Santoro. He plays a bohemian artist so
wrapped up in his work that he has no idea who she is. The pair escape to his
rooftop garret and, free from the cares of the world, begin a passionate love
affair. But Kidman's character can’t hide for ever, and she reluctantly
returns to her celebrity life, leaving behind her lover. The final scene shows
her stepping onto a red carpet in a blaze of paparazzi flashbulbs. She gazes
wistfully over the rooftops to where her lover lives. The strains of Debussy's
Clair de Lune swell, then fade.
You might coo over an Andrex puppy, but at advance screenings, some viewers were
so moved by the love story at the heart of the ad that they cried at the end.
It's rare that you can describe an advert as moving, but the emotional power of
the film lies with Kidman herself. The story line — a famous woman, unlucky in
love and pursued by the press — mirrors her own life in many ways. When she
was beseiged by photographers at the recent Chanel fashion show in Paris, it was
as if a scene from the ad had become a reality. Luhrmann's wife, Catherine
Martin, a friend of Kidman's and the production designer, believes the parallels
between the actress and character give the film potency. "She knows
that’s part of the territory," Martin says of Kidman's paparazzi-plagued
existence. "But she fulfils all her obligations with such grace. She always
treats them with the respect they deserve. People expect her to come looking
beautiful and having made an extraordinary effort with her appearance. She does
that with enormous aplomb."
Luhrmann agrees: "I look at her sometimes when we are just hanging out —
jeans, glasses, her hair pulled back — and she's a great gal, but a gal
nonetheless. What she can become, though, is inhumanly glamorous."
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A scent of occasion
By Hilary Alexander, Telegraph.co.uk
12 October 2004
The launch of the biggest advertising campaign ever for Chanel No 5, featuring Nicole Kidman, was an evening not to be missed, says Hilary Alexander
Take a major Hollywood film star, an internationally renowned designer and a fabulous 18th-century mansion on the Left Bank of Paris. Add a generous dose of European royalty, a sprinkling of some of the wealthiest couture customers in the world, and a clutch of best-dressed designers, celebrities, pop stars, actresses and beautiful models. Scent the air with the musky aroma of hundreds of Diptyque Pomander candles, tent the magnificent courtyard in white muslin in case of rain, and put the champagne on ice.
Thus, the scene was set for one of the most glamorous and exclusive affairs of the Paris prêt-à-porter season – the private dinner Karl Lagerfeld hosted for Nicole Kidman, the new "face" of Chanel No 5, and Baz Luhrmann, the Australian director, at his home, the Hôtel Pozzo di
Borgo.
The front of the invitations featured a drawing by Lagerfeld of Kidman wearing a gown with a billowing train in palest pink, ostrich feathers and a metre-long necklace of 350 diamonds, the ensemble she wears in the opening scenes of the new No 5 advert, which was conceived and directed by Luhrmann.
The dress code, "five o'clock and later", was interpreted in different ways. Princess Caroline of Hanover wore Chanel couture, her 18-year-old daughter, Charlotte Casiraghi was in strapless black, while her two sons, Pierre and Andrea, sported jeans, open-necked, white shirts and dark jackets.
Sofia Coppola wore white, Grecian-look Prada; the editor of American Vogue, Anna
Wintour, was in Chanel gold tweed, straight off the catwalk, while the editor of French Vogue, Carine
Roitfeld, was in vintage 1975 Yves Saint Laurent.
Delphine Arnault, daughter of the LVMH tycoon, Bernard Arnault, previewed a ruffled, tulle Louis Vuitton by Marc Jacobs dress from next spring/summer's collection; Stella McCartney Willis wore Stella; and Jefferson Hack, a Christian Dior by Hedi
Slimane, pale blue, officers' mess jacket and jeans.
Linda Evangelista, who had opened the Chanel spring/summer 2005 show earlier in the day, had flown back to Canada for her brother's wedding, but fellow former supermodels were there in force: Nadja
Auermann, Shalom Harlow and Amber Valletta were all in vintage Chanel, while Eva Herzigova wore a white lace gipsy blouse with her favourite Paper, Denim & Cloth jeans.
Kidman outshone them all, her pale skin glowing against the rich pewter beadwork of her short, strapless, Chanel couture dress.
Sipping champagne, we previewed the new No 5 ad, which will be released for television and cinemas on November 25. It is the biggest advertising and promotional project Chanel has ever undertaken, and is rumoured to have cost well over £5 million.
Lasting three minutes, it is a miniature Baz Luhrmann movie, shot in the manner of Moulin Rouge and starring Kidman and the Brazilian actor Rodrigo Santoro in a romantic, doomed - and, one assumes, illicit - love tryst, set to Debussy's Clair de Lune.
"It was great fun," Kidman told me. "Baz and I talked about every love story from Romeo and Juliet onwards."
She is currently finishing filming of Bewitched. And after that?
"I'm taking some time off."
Dinner was served in the marquee. Lobster with roasted figs was followed by seabass and then un morceau of dessert – chocolate mousse hiding a cache of raspberries and vanilla ice-cream.
After dinner came dancing and while some guests boogied away until 3am, Kidman slipped away. The new face of No 5, after all, must have her beauty sleep.
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Paparazzi! At
Chanel, Lagerfeld and Kidman star
Suzy Menkes, International Herald Tribune
9 October 2004
Was that blood on the long red tongue of carpet as the paparazzi pushed, shoved and battled in the delirium of Friday's Chanel show? Heads butted, tempers snapped, lenses poked at the lovely porcelain face and upswept blonde tendrils of Nicole Kidman.
Poor Nicole! Then it was Karl Lagerfeld to the rescue! The designer plucked Kidman from her front row seat and led her through the popping flashbulbs to the sound of Duran Duran singing "Notorious."
The dazzling Chanel show held up a mirror to celebrity society and was an exceptional moment of art imitating life, imitating art. The clue was in the neat video screens that the models wore strapped to their waists with the sportier outfits. The show was dedicated to the film clip orchestrated by the director Baz Luhrmann as a "Moulin Rouge bis." It tells, in screen flashes and flashbulbs, the tale of an actress, pursued by paparazzi, who reaches love and a Zen spirit via Chanel No 5.
The entire show, mirroring the mini-movie, was brilliantly executed from the opening scenes, where models in featherlight black gowns walked the red carpet smiling and waving to the audience (a treat in itself in a world of straight-faced models), through to the denouement, which became an "Alice Through The Looking Glass" extension of the film.
"It was so much fun - it was fantastic," said Kidman as she drew breath backstage. "And that last black dress was the perfect, perfect gown." She was referring to a seductive slither of black velvet with bared back where a pendant spelled out Chanel No. 5 in diamonds.
Lagerfeld gave lavish praise to Luhrmann's vision, while the director joshed "Take Number Two!" The designer himself starred by producing a superb collection that went far beyond costuming the red carpet world. (Although Hollywood will be in fashion heaven with peachy chiffon dresses and translucent pink and gray pearls; with a white camellia print on cloud gray silk, faux diamond shoe buckles and swinging spherical purses.)
The day clothes may have taken a supporting role, but they were perfectly judged: pastel tweed coats, small jackets with cropped pants, houndstooth check melded with raincoat beige, stripy knits and "mumu" dresses to slip over swimsuits.
For high flyers, there was even a Chanel inflatable neck support, with a matching sleep mask. Sporty track-suit jackets accompanied the show's only weak point: strands of this season's fashionable macramé caging the outfits. The same idea in crystal beading was superb in its craftsmanship.
Lagerfeld, with the compliance and support of Chanel, creates a rare blend of class and commerce. Let them wear gloves! And clients are tempted with truncated hand warmers with a fringed edge. Dresses bloused on the hips had an echo of Lanvin, but everything that goes through the designer's fertile brain comes out looking quintessentially Chanel. That included Kidman herself, in black jeans, a fitted jacket and a bow-tied scarf.
In an oblique way, the gorgeous collection seemed to say "enough already" to the celebrity circus. Great clothes can perform on their own.
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Kidman steals Chanel Paris collection show
Expactica.com
8 October 2004
PARIS (AFP) - Karl Lagerfeld on Friday presented a glamorous red carpet for his ready-to-wear summer collection for Chanel, but Oscar-winning actress Nicole Kidman - the new face of the label's fabled No. 5 perfume - stole the show.
Just before the show began, the blonde Australian actress, clad in a black pants suit with a white scarf around her neck, slipped in a back entrance. But the phalanx of photographers was ready.
The arrival of the 37-year-old movie star - who sat next to Baz Luhrmann, the director behind her hit film "Moulin Rouge" and the new Chanel No. 5 ad campaign - caused such a stir that Lagerfeld himself took the microphone.
"I don't want us to run too late and I want Ms Kidman to be able to see the show," Lagerfeld said to
cheers from the more than 2,000 people invited to the spectacle, as security agents removed the journalists from the catwalk.
But the incident fit perfectly into Lagerfeld's staging of his ready-to-wear show for spring-summer 2005: a red carpet leading up a short flight of stairs into an auditorium, like at the Cannes film festival.
The scene also resembled the end of Luhrmann's short film for Chanel No. 5 starring Kidman, an advertisement for which the film star reportedly earned USD 7.5 million (EUR 6.1 million).
The photographers, corralled behind faux fences, were required to wear black and white so as to meld into the backdrop. Some complained but nearly all of them complied.
After all the hubbub, Linda Evangelista finally opened the show, joined by a small club of top models including Naomi Campbell and Eva Herzigova whose catwalk appearances are few and far between.
In prim tweeds and satin and lace siren gowns, the bevy of beauties in black captured the essence of the pretty collection.
As Duran Duran's pulsating 1980s hit "Notorious" blared over the sound system, the German designer then sent out a veritable army of models at breakneck speed to show off his overflowing list of ideas for next summer.
A black, charcoal and white tweed skirt suit was perfect for the boardroom, while a gold denim skirt paired with a matching sleeveless top seemed an ideal option for a starlet at a laid-back publicity event.
For late-night swims at the Eden Roc - the hotel of choice for the beautiful people in Cannes - Lagerfeld offered black bikinis with 1940s-style high-waisted boy shorts. A lace kimono and a chain belt finished the look.
When you think Chanel, you think accessories. For next summer, Lagerfeld offered open-toed shoes with a funky dual heel or strappy numbers with a giant jewel over the toes. The trademark Chanel pearls inflated into evening bags.
For evening, a white knit gown with a guipure filigree train looked sure to show up on the red carpet at next year's Cannes film festival.
The show ended with a backless black column gown slit high in the front, the bare skin in the back covered with a glittering No. 5 pendant - a carbon copy of the final image of Kidman in the ad for the iconic fragrance.
The hysteria again spun out of control at show's end, when Lagerfeld took Kidman's hand and brought her onto the catwalk. Photographers jostled for position, some falling as they were out-muscled by their competitors.
The models who hit the runway for their curtain call were forced to make an about-face due to the media scrum. Lagerfeld and Kidman eventually managed to get backstage as David Bowie's "Fame" repeated in the background. Indeed.
Christian Lacroix was to unveil his ready-to-wear collection for next summer later Friday.
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Nicole Kidman Triggers Paparazzi Chaos at Chanel
By Joelle Diderich, Reuters
8 October 2004
PARIS (Reuters) - Chaos erupted on the Paris catwalk on Friday as Hollywood star Nicole Kidman arrived to launch her promotional campaign for Chanel's legendary No 5 perfume, setting off a paparazzi stampede.
Kidman has reunited with "Moulin Rouge" director Baz Luhrmann to shoot a two-minute film in which she plays an actress who flees photographers at a movie premiere and ends up romancing a handsome stranger, played by Brazilian actor Rodrigo Santoro.
Chanel is hoping the advertising blitz will help it win the battle for the all-important Christmas perfume market.
The fashion house's designer Karl Lagerfeld whipped up a red-carpeted runway for Friday's show to mimic the campaign, and life promptly imitated art.
A swarm of photographers pushed and shoved each other to get the "money shot" -- Kidman wearing a slim black trousersuit with her blonde hair pinned up in curls. Unlike her screen alter-ego, she basked in the attention.
"I thought he made it really fun and vibrant," Kidman told well-wishers backstage after the show.
With Luhrmann at her side, the Oscar-winning actress could just as easily have been attending the Cannes film festival. Her appearance was the highlight of a week short on front-row stars, and it took 20 security guards to get the snappers to disperse.
The celebrity worship continued on the runway, where models preened like film stars in the glare of the flashbulbs.
Opening the show were the women who originally coined the term "supermodel" in the 1990s -- Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, Eva Herzigova, Nadja Auermann and Kristen McMenamy, wearing glamorous gowns that were perfect for the Oscars.
A black velvet dress featured a plunging back set off with a diamond pendant spelling out the number five. The perfume, with its distinctive square bottle and stopper, reached mythical status when Marilyn Monroe announced it was all she wore in bed.
Modern screen goddesses will find plenty to wear in the spotlight, such as a white sleeveless dress with a filigree knit train or a burnished gold tunic with matching floorlength skirt.
A model in a black-and-white striped short-sleeved sweater and leather trousers was a dead ringer for Brigitte Bardot in her St Tropez heyday -- down to the backcombed blonde ponytail.
Sudanese model Alek Wek summed up Chanel's minimalist chic in a black swimsuit worn with the rows of pearls favored by founder Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel.
"I think the show today said that we really have a culture that's hungry for glamour, particularly hungry for authentic glamour," said Ingrid Sischy, editor of Interview, the magazine created by Andy Warhol that launched the celebrity culture.
"Glamour doesn't just come when you put on a nice dress and some dripping diamonds, I think it really comes from selfhood and someone who stands for things," Sischy said. "When you're in the face of the real thing, you see it, people go wild."
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