Margot robbie hijacks a kylie minogue classic to sell chanel’s new it-bag
They closed a fake Paris street inside a Los Angeles soundstage, flew in Michel Gondry, and told Margot Robbie to become Kylie Minogue for 30 seconds. The result—dropping today—is a shot-for-shot remake of the 2001 “Come Into My World” video, commissioned to launch the Chanel 25 handbag, the house’s first post-pandemic icon drop.
The loop closes twice: Gondry last worked with Minogue on the original clip; Robbie’s first gig ever was the Fever tour in Sydney. Minogue agreed to a nanosecond cameo, entering the revolving set just before the camera starts its fifth 360-degree spin. “I’ve been dreaming about Kylie for 25 years,” Gondry deadpans, “so I found an excuse to direct her again.” Robbie, who can’t hold a note, calls the casting “perfect karaoke without the singing.”
The bag is the anti-classic-flap
No quilting, no interlocking CC, no chain strap that chips nail polish. The 25—named for the number of prototypes—comes in buttery calf that collapses when open yet snaps back into a tidy trapeze. Three sizes, 12 colours, zero visible logos. “It’s the first Chanel you can stuff a laptop into without looking like you tried,” Robbie says, yanking out a script and two lip balms on set.
Demand is already stupid. Wait-lists opened 48 hours after stylists pulled it for December cover shoots; resale bots scraped the SKU and relisted confirmations at 2.4× retail. The house won’t disclose numbers, but three Paris sales associates admitted, off record, that they’re allocated three pieces each until March.
Why this matters beyond the hype cycle
Chanel is quietly pivoting from heritage armour to stealth wealth. After the 2023 price hikes that pushed the classic flap past €10,000, the clientele skewed older and more logo-shy. The 25 re-anchors the brand in the under-40 demo that made Bottega’s Pouch and Phoebe-era Céline explode. Note the maths: €6,800 buys entry, 30% less than a Classic, but still high enough to keep the rabble out.
Robbie, fresh off a Barbenheimer double that proved her Q-score prints money, is the safe-conduct. She negotiated archival access for both Wuthering Heights (leather corset threaded with 1993 Gripoix brooches) and Barbie (bubblegum pink 1994 flap), so the brand trusts her to treat product like narrative prop, not sacred relic.
The cameo you will rewind
Minogue enters at 0:04, hair flick timed to the downbeat, wearing the same micro-dress she sported in 2001 but dyed Chanel beige. The edit freezes one frame, just long enough for TikTok to dissect it into a ten-part conspiracy: is she ageing backwards? The algorithm loves a time-travel glitch.
Robbie, meanwhile, practised the walk for two days, studying footage on loop in her trailer. “Kylie’s hips lie,” she laughs. “They tell you life is easy.” The crew filmed 28 takes; Gondry kept only the last, when Robbie’s smile cracked into something less rehearsed, more Sydney 2002.
What happens next
Expect a second colour drop before Chinese New Year—lipstick red, gold hardware, regional exclusive. After that, Chanel will seed the 25 on Euphoria and The White Lotus costumers, betting that screen placement beats Instagram #ads. The bag already has a nickname in Hong Kong: the “ghost flap,” because it haunts every wish-list but vanishes on arrival.
By March the resale premium will normalise, but the signal won’t: heritage houses can still invent desire without logos, nostalgia without archives. All it takes is a pop-culture wormhole, a director who misses his muse, and an actress who remembers every lyric she never sang.