Chanel Fall 2025 Ad Campaign

Review of Chanel Fall 2025 Ad Campaign with Photographer Mikael Jansson with models Mona Tougaard

By Sonya Moore

Landing as a contemplative interlude; a possible response to a season marked by swirling anticipation, Chanel’s Fall campaign is an ode to the Maison’s codes at a moment of quiet transition. Photographed by Mikael Jansson and modeled by Mona Tougaard, the campaign draws its strength from restraint. Before Matthieu Blazy’s highly awaited debut, the house turns its gaze inward, holding its breath, serving as an intermission amid change. What unfolds is less a reinvention than a reflective continuation—leaning into a timelessly chic Parisian dialogue that feels both familiar and momentarily unshaken.

Set on a classic café terrace, against the elegant rhythm of Haussmannian architecture and cobbled pavements, the imagery creates a world where movement is serenity and stillness is style. Tougaard, with her radiant demeanor, illuminates the collection through subtly choreographed motion—a sway of fabric, a blurred branded heel—inviting the viewer into Chanel’s cinematic dreamscape. While the campaign achieves its goal of quiet continuity, its narrow focus on casting and styling may have softened the impact of what could have been a more resonant transitional statement.

The campaign’s visual strategy is clear: Paris as muse, youth as mood, and allure as action. Tougaard embodies Chanel’s multifaceted woman—romantic yet untouchable, grounded yet aspirational. And in motion, the campaign achieves a certain poetry. Given that the runway show spanned more than seventy looks, the campaign’s visual distillation feels notably pared back—particularly as some of the collection’s most anticipated ensembles are absent, leaving the selection feeling slightly out of sync with its standout moments. One model, however captivating, cannot bear the full narrative weight of such a vast, transitional collection, and perhaps a companion could be beneficial in distributing not only the scope of the collection, but in return, the value.

Thoughtfully and thoroughly, it is apparent that the idea of youth is the driving conceptual force behind this campaign. Nonetheless, when a narrative hinges so heavily on such an overarching theme, movement alone doesn’t always suffice. There’s a missed opportunity to translate the spirit of individuality that drives the youth mindset today—the impulse to style, remix, and the desire to claim a collection or brand as one’s own. While the looks remain faithful to the brand’s ambitions of a playfully modern interpretation of its signature elements, more unexpected pairings in styling could have enhanced this vitality while adding dimension to the collection’s inherent versatility. What results is more reverent than rebellious, in a moment that could have embraced both.

What lingers is not a bold statement but a gentle exhale. This is Chanel, holding space—between creative chapters, between runway spectacle and retail clarity. The campaign’s cinematic restraint works as a calm before the creative storm, but one wonders if a bolder visual direction might have more purposefully leaned into the current questions surrounding the house’s identity and future. Still, in its cascading imagery, we see a brand confident enough to pause, to observe, and to stay the course. The codes remain intact, the accessories sharpen with a sedulous focus, and the stage is quietly set—for what comes next.