Monaco Life explores the long history between Charlotte Casiraghi and legendary fashion brand Chanel.
As the daughter of Princess Caroline of Hanover and the granddaughter of the forever-elegant Grace Kelly, Charlotte Casiraghi is a style icon of the highest degree. She was born to be glamourous, a fact not lost on legendary fashion house Chanel, who named her as a brand ambassador back in 2021.
Her history with the fashion house, from casual wearer to brand ambassador, is hardly an accident. Her mother was not just a dear friend of the brand’s late Creative Director Karl Lagerfeld, she was also a stalwart adherent to the line.
This love of Chanel was clearly passed down to Charlotte, who began sporting the designer’s clothes as a young woman, memorably to Monaco’s National Day celebrations in 2005, where she wore a classic Chanel tweed skirt suit with a matching quilted handbag.
A love affair nearly two decades in the marking
She followed this up with several standout outfits: a peach chiffon gown at the 2006 Rose Ball; a pink off-the-shoulder cocktail dress for the wedding of her uncle Prince Albert II to Charlene Wittstock in 2011; a black tweed skirt suit at the 2012 Little Black Jacket Paris book launch celebrating Chanel’s indomitable style; a pale pink organza couture number for the 2013 Rose Ball; and a refined navy sweater dress at the 2017 Cruise Show, to name but a few. Indeed Charlotte even wore a bespoke Chanel gown to the reception of her wedding to Dimitri Rassam in 2019 (pictured above).
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As a good brand ambassador, the 36-year-old was spotted in Chanel in March at the prêt-a porter fashion show spotlighting the 2023/24 Autumn/Winter line in Paris’ Grand Palais Ephémère.
She also wore one of the most talked about dresses of the recent Rose Ball in Monaco: a shimmering white floor-length gown trimmed in feathers, which came from this year’s Spring/Summer collection.
Perhaps her most enduring moment, though, was during Paris Couture Week in early 2022, when the keen equestrian opened the Chanel show by riding in on a beautiful horse. She wore a glittering black tweed jacket as her horse strode down the runway, making for one of the most memorable moments in fashion history.
Her status as ambassador was no doubt part of the reason that Lagerfeld’s successor, Virginie Viard, chose Monaco as the stage to debut the Chanel 2023 Cruise Collection in May 2022, which saw Casiraghi sporting a chic head-to-toe denim outfit replete with the signature Chanel quilted look.
“Charlotte represents Chanel’s style in a very authentic and natural way, while remaining true to her own universe,” said Viard ahead of the show.
The worlds of fashion and literature collide
But her role as ambassador is more than just wearing the latest fashions and turning up to amazing events. It also has a literary angle, an undertaking initiated by her called the Literary Rendezvous at Rue Cambon, where female writers are invited to talk about their work or on a specific theme.
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This project would have touched Lagerfeld, who had an abiding love of literature, as did Coco Chanel herself through life-long friendships with writers such as Jean Cocteau and Max Jacob.
As a side note, a biopic on the life of Lagerfeld will be shot in Monaco this May, showing the strong link between the fashion house and the royal house. As so it goes…
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Main photo credit: Palais Princier de Monaco / Félix Dol-Maillot