Chanel Taps Lily-Rose Depp for Beauty Line
Lily-Rose Depp is the face of "Coco Denim," a new denim-inspired makeup collection from Chanel. The launch illustrates how legacy houses are using beauty as a brand extension to reach new audiences, leveraging celebrities with both high-fashion and pop-culture credibility.
Depp’s connection to Chanel is generational, following in the footsteps of her mother, Vanessa Paradis, who first became a house ambassador in 1991. Paradis was the face of the Coco fragrance in a memorable Jean-Paul Goude-directed campaign where she was portrayed as a bird in a cage. This long-standing family tie grounds the collaboration in a narrative of heritage. At just 16 years old, Lily-Rose Depp was personally chosen by the late Karl Lagerfeld to be a brand ambassador, debuting as the face of the Pearl eyewear collection in 2015. Lagerfeld noted her unique mix of qualities, stating she was "a young girl from a new generation with all the qualities of a star." Depp recalls meeting the designer at age eight and has spoken of their close friendship. This isn't Depp's first major beauty campaign for the house. In 2016, she was named the face of Chanel No. 5 L'Eau, a more delicate and modern interpretation of the iconic fragrance, aimed at a younger audience. The campaign, also shot by Jean-Paul Goude, played on themes of paradox and youthful wonder, solidifying her role in Chanel's evolving beauty narrative. Chanel’s strategy often involves using its more accessible beauty and fragrance lines to introduce the brand to new, younger consumers. By keeping fashion collections exclusively in-boutique while making beauty available online, the house maintains its luxury allure while scaling its reach. This approach turns products like lipstick or skincare into an entry point to the wider world of Chanel.
