While some fashion folk might equate Chloé with great-fitting pants, pretty blouses and handbags with interesting hardware, the brand’s raison d’être goes much deeper.
If that wasn’t already a tall order, then the coronavirus pandemic hit, which only reaffirmed Bellini’s commitment to a “profound transformation of our business model.” Also among her innovations was giving her brand a female pronoun, and letting a rotating cast of design talents, headlined by Karl Lagerfeld, interpret her free-spirited attitude.
While Bellini divulged Chloé’s transformation for the first time in this WWD interview, the company has already quietly taken several steps as a purpose-driven enterprise. As a whole, the display telegraphed everyday life, togetherness, and positive action, and marked “the beginning of creative renewal,” according to Bellini, stressing that the entire creative studio, led by Ramsay-Levi, is heavily invested in the brand’s new focus. “Our creative director is the first ambassador of such a vision,” he noted.
In line with the petition’s principles, Chloé reduced the size of its collections, shifted the delivery cadence to match the clothes to the weather, and toughened its stance on early sales. Last year Chloé established an environmental profit and loss account, setting a roadmap through 2025 to reduce its eco impact. And now Bellini is collaborating with French fashion school IFM, or Institut Français de la Mode, to develop a methodology for a social profit-and-loss account. While the research is only starting, the company plans to open-source the tool, which is believed to be a first in the industry.
Bellini recently ran into an avid luxury shopper on Avenue Montaigne, her arms loaded with bags from half-a-dozen of the marquee European brands on the tony thoroughfare, and he quizzed her about her purchases. The woman was upfront about what each of them represented to her, and told the executive that “Chloé is my second skin.”