EXCLUSIVE: Chanel Launches Arts & Culture Magazine

LONDON — Chanel is strengthening its cultural initiatives with celebrations for its centenary in the U.K.

The French brand is launching Arts & Culture Magazine, a publication that revisits the brand’s work with artists and cultural institutions in the last five years. The project is led by Chanel’s Culture Fund and Yana Peel, the president of arts, culture and heritage at the brand.

To inaugurate the publication, Chanel has taken over the Foreign Exchange News in Bayswater in London until June 28.

The first issue of Arts & Culture Magazine, otherwise known as Vol. 1, will also be available in 20 bookstores worldwide including shops in Amsterdam, Bangalore, Bangkok, Berlin, Glasgow, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Milan, New York, Paris, São Paulo, Seoul, Shanghai, Sydney, Taipei, Tokyo and Zurich.

The magazine will be carried by Foreign Exchange News, Tenderbooks, Rococo News & Magazines and Reference Point in London and RIPE Mags in Glasgow.

The magazine is a visual feast with multiple paper types across 250 pages produced in English. Chanel has asked the creatives involved to share their insights on the future.

The launch of Arts & Culture Magazine is part of the brand’s push for supporting print and bookstores around the world. The magazine’s cover uses items from Gabrielle Chanel’s personal collection: a statue bust of the designer made by Jacques Lipchitz in 1921 wearing metallic Chanel sunglasses from the brand’s fall 2002 show shot by Roe Ethridge.

Other images in the issue include a white shell-like tray with gold interiors that holds an array of pearls with a bottle of Chanel No. 5 and a colored seashell, and a collage of lion prints, which is a subtle hint to the founder’s zodiac sign.

Last week, Chanel toasted to its 100 years in the U.K. with an intimate 100-guest dinner and a ballet performance behind a Pablo Picasso stage cloth at the V&A East Storehouse in Stratford’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

“Everything goes back to Gabrielle and the U.K. still has this special place for the house because we still source tweed and cashmere from the U.K.,” Elizabeth Anglès d’Auriac, president of Chanel U.K., told WWD.

“Things become evident and ideas bubble up when you start getting interested in your local environment, your clients and the culture environment. We always think about creation, creativity and craftsmanship — it’s our heritage, but it’s also in our present and future,” she said.