Natacha Ramsay-Levi Explores Feminine Reality In Her First Chloé Campaign

When, during Paris Fashion week, Natacha Ramsay-Levipresented her inaugural vision of the Chloé woman, it was to a somewhat rapturous reception. A contemporary version of the brand’s archetypal femininity, hers was a Chloé that paired floral dresses with python-skin booties; layered peachy pastels under sturdy leathers; and visibly toughened its soft-focus appeal. Now, with her first campaign for the house – a short film, directed by Steven Meisel, and a series of stills that have been taken from it – that vision has been compounded.

“Women have a past, they have emotions, they have cracks – and the Chloé woman is not a phantasme,” she explained over the phone from Paris. “She has something very real [about her], and here we wanted to take that reality to a new level. I felt that, on a classical shoot, we couldn’t get that depth.” What has surmounted is a sort of character study, which she describes as seen “from the perspective of someone staring at a woman in the street, trying to understand who they are.” That analogy could hardly be more apt – it is, in a way, precisely what Ramsay-Levi has been doing at the brand for nine months.

There is, of course, no greater man to lens your first campaign than Meisel – as Ramsay-Levi says, “he is the reference of a fashion photographer,” and the two already had a working relationship, having become acquainted while she was working for Nicolas Ghesquière at Balenciaga. But beyond that, “I wanted to work with someone who has a vision, but who also deals with the personality of a woman.” That is precisely what Ramsay-Levi seems determined to establish: the personality of the women she is designing for. “She’s very real, she’s in the street, she’s not in a fantasy world,” she says – and here, that sense is tangible: these are shoes, and bags, and astoundingly pretty dresses made to be lived in. It's certainly an appealing thought – and, perhaps more pertinently here, makes for a very appealing visual.