At the Baselworld show, Chanel Horlogerie gave us a sneak peak of the brand new 2014 ad campaign. Dubbed “L’Instant Chanel”, 15 black and white visuals as fascinating as an aquatic ballet unfold across two pages. Here, the timepieces in the Première, J12, and Mademoiselle Privé collections play with academism. This is what is the norm for campaigns in the watchmaking universe: only showing the precise time at 10:10 to illustrate or clarify the movement of the balancer. The idea behind it? It looks like the watch is smiling at you. But now, by teaming up with the immense creativity of Demarchelier, Chanel is obliterating this convention. On the shots is sketched all the grace of a new approach in watchmaking. When attitudes and postures reproduce those of the hands of a watch at a given hour, the double-C brand is able to reconcile the movements of time with those of mankind.
For Nicolas Beau, international director of Chanel Horlogerie, the inspiration for the campaign leans towards illumination: “Time is tension between the future and the past, and we wanted to express the vision of time that Chanel has through its watches: it’s the present that is precious. When you talk about watches, you talk about passing time, but Chanel represents the present moment, here and now, enjoying the moment.” An audacious and very creative campaign through which Chanel extols Carpe Diem as a vision where the present moment is understood insofar as which piece of eternity it contains. A series of photos tinged with mischief where a precious precise instant exalts us in the same way that a Chanel watch gives time a unique look. And to bring it to life, the house on the rue Cambon is taking over Colette’s store windows. From May 19th to the 26th, three screens will project six black and white films. The perfect occasion to exclusively discover the J12 Blue Light watch, a new timepiece cast in white ceramic and luminescent blue numerals, available in only 2,000 copies.
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