What do a CHANEL perfume bottle, an advertising film, a watch and an eyeshadow compact have in common? Who makes the choice of a model, a photographer or a film director? Answer: an eye, the eye of Jacques Helleu, the Artistic Director of CHANEL, the sole guarantor of the visual language of the brand. His father Jean, created bottles and other packaging for CHANEL products. Paul César, his grandfather was a familiar face on the promenade and in Mademoiselle's shop in Deauville. A family tradition was already established.

At eighteen Jacques Helleu decided to follow in his father's footsteps. He went to work for CHANEL as if it were a vocation and has remained there ever since, dedicated to the brand, balancing innovation against the imperative of preserving the magic of CHANEL.

With each new creation the requirement is the same: how to remain true to the aesthetic tradition of the brand while continuing to innovate and surprise? Perhaps by daring to trust his instinct and experimenting with the universal nature of motifs, numbers and colours. Certainly by surrounding himself with the greatest photographers and the most beautiful women. And by taking risks: in entrusting the making of several advertising films to Ridley Scott, the director of ALIEN, in choosing Vanessa Paradis as the one-time face of COCO, and in agreeing that Luc Besson should revisit the Little Red Riding Hood story with N°5. The art of creating seduction through subtle allusion.