Chanel Empire Reaches London

Chanel may already have several standalone stores in the British capital, but now two brands from its stable are opening here, too. Maison Michel, an early 20th-century French milliner, and Barrie, the Scottish mill behind much of Chanel's knitwear, have been given own-brand units in one of London's oldest shopping spaces - Burlington Arcade, off Piccadilly - prompting a lot of questions. Why did Chanel acquire these brands? Why promote them as separate entities? Why do they need their own stores? Why London? And, most importantly, is Chanel becoming an LVMH and Kering-style conglomerate? Luckily, Bruno Pavlovsky - Chanel CEO and also CEO of both of the aforementioned brands - is in a patient mood.

"What we are doing at Chanel, in respect to our investments, is to help enable us to create and design what we want for Chanel," he stated simply. Where LVMH might spot a young label with potential for growth, Chanel is only interested in symbiotic relationships, he explained. Every label that the French fashion behemoth has invested in - including French tannery Bodin Joyeux, couture embroider Lesage, lingerie label Eres and watchmaker Bell & Ross - has some "use" to the brand, so then why not just absorb them into Chanel? Why give Barrie - now a standalone ready-to-wear brand with its own seasonal collections as well as a knitwear supplier - its own store? Pavlovsky smiled kindly, as if the rest of the fashion world was slightly missing the point.

Bruno Pavlovsky

"We are different," he grinned mischievously, "we choose the opposite approach. In order to continue to be creative, our brands have to continue to work with many designers. If you work all the time with the same brand, at some point you stop developing your creativity. Different designers and different requests mean that you have to be more agile, you have to adapt yourself. And Chanel benefits - directly and indirectly - from this agility. They need to build their own autonomy and not be merged with the big group."

The idea of a bird being allowed to fly free rather than kept in a gilded Chanel cage is a romantic one, but from a practical perspective total freedom in business could cause problems. Like a jealous lover, would Chanel stop Barrie from potential dalliances that may prove harmful or hurtful? What if Givenchy or Dior wished to court its Scottish love?

"It's happening already," Pavolovsky said confidently - seeming somewhat pleased that his new investment is still attracting such admiration. "Both Chanel and Barrie work with many other brands, many of the big names, and there is no contradiction or problem with that. There are strong links between Chanel and these brands, or course, but in order to be creative you also need to see a broad landscape. You have to be able to go out, work with young names, big names - as long as they can foster their creativity, we are moving in the right direction." Choosing to open the store in Burlington Arcade was on purpose, because this arcade is a bridge between yesterday and tomorrow. It is a good place for these brands to be.

Maison Michel

In line with the autonomy prescribed, each brand has its own creative director - but each of these designers also holds a role at Chanel, completing the circle as it were. Barrie's creative director, Odile Massuger, has created two collections for the 1903-founded brand, but also oversees knitwear for Chanel; while Laetitia Crahay, artistic director of the Maison Michel collection, is also head of jewellery at Chanel. This openness on the part of the brand calls to mind the freedom afforded to Karl Lagerfeld himself, who is also creative director of Fendi as well as Chanel - and has many other creative outlets, from photography to designing his eponymous label.

"Fendi, Dior, Vuitton, Chloé!" Pavlovsky joked. "There's a long list! I don't see any contradiction with what he does, or with what I do in overseeing all three brands. When Lagerfeld is working on Chanel he is completely focused on Chanel. For my job, too, you have to be focused on one thing at a time: Chanel is bigger, so takes more time of course, but these brands are developing and need a lot of attention, too."

Chanel has been praised for creating jobs at the once-struggling Barrie mill in the Scottish Borders - and there is more to come.

"In two years, we have already recruited 50 people, and in the next three years we will recruit 100 more people," Pavlovsky revealed. "The first priority for recruitment is the local area - which is possible for some roles, not for others, and so to develop that more we have opened an internal school within Barrie to make the growth within the region possible. Training takes between six to 18 months so at this stage it is still difficult, but the training is helping."

The London store openings, too, have engendered much discussion, situated as they are on one of the capital's "old" retail sites rather than the more popular Mount, Dover or Albemarle Streets.

"For these two labels, the collections are doing quite well - both have had a boutique in Paris for around a year - so the obvious place for the next store was London," he said. "For Barrie it's more like coming home than opening internationally, but we will look to open in the other key fashion cities later. Choosing to open the store in Burlington Arcade was on purpose, because this arcade is a bridge between yesterday and tomorrow. It is a good place for these brands to be."

So is this the beginning of Chanel Incorporated - a massive conglomerate set to take over the fashion world?

"Yes and no," he said. "Chanel is first and foremost about Chanel. We have so many things that we continue to develop that we want to always to focus on Chanel. Never forget that these brands will all help us to continue to design our collections for the next 20, 30 years. So, they are not here just as a new brand, they are here because they have a specific know-how that makes sense for other brands - including Chanel. These labels have existed for a long time and the only way to keep all the know-how of these companies available for the big brands - Chanel being part of the big brands - is to develop their own brands."