Chantelle Reimagined

Mr Cambuzat, our first question is purely out of curiosity – as you approached the world of lingerie, what was it that immediately caught your expert eye?
At first, I was struck by how specific the product is, technically complex, difficult to represent and capture in images, but captivating as it carries many different societal challenges. The intimate nature of lingerie brings up diverse key conversations such as the body, the mind, the relationship between the two, and more largely, the question of woman and the feminine. These are rich, demanding topics and it is always difficult for a brand to treat them with the necessary precision. I thought we could offer new proposals, more emotive, more open, less stereotypical and more stimulating. What does it mean to be a woman today? How can we reflect her complexity with the respect it deserves, both on a body level with high-quality products and on a mind level with inspiring brand experiences ? There are multiple answers, and it is this multiplicity that we feel important to think of.

Image, as your primary field, plays a fundamental role in the identification of each of your brands and, yes, the changes have been significant for all of the brands, but aren’t they even more striking for Chantal Thomass? What was your intention here? The brand benefits from a strong identity, high-end and different, carried by its independent spirit and the unique style of its creator. The FW18- 19 images are a new interpretation that is loyal to the irreverent and creative brand. If you compare our brands, Chantelle defines the rules, Passionata doesn’t take them too seriously, and Chantal Thomass breaks them.

You say that digital will be an integral part of your development strategy. Can you give us a sneak preview as to how this will unfold? We want to continue to develop across the three distribution channels, which for us are wholesale, retail and digital. Furthermore, the skills developed in retail and digital should also strongly benefit our wholesale partners. Digital is therefore indeed one of our priorities for the coming years. It should complement the in-store experience by enriching it with additional functionalities in line with new customer trends and expectations. We are also working on projects that aim to use digital to support the activity of our wholesale partners, who remain a key pillar for us. From a brand image and communication standpoint, digital is a privileged channel to establish a direct connection with our clients, be it through social media, our own sites or those of our partners. It is also a great way to immerse our customers in our brands’ universes, which is essential as we know that a large part of our clients today first look online before buying in-store and are often guided by desire for a brand rather than for a specific product. Beyond refreshing our existing networks following our recent artistic directions, we are thinking of new ways to use digital to communicate with our clients and accompany our partners, from dedicated content productions and specific actions, to the creation of a new ambitious platform for the group in 2019 which will offer an innovative and empowering experience.