Willow Smith will take your breath away in the new Chanel campaign. It was announced in June that she would be the face for the Chanel eyewear collection for the Fall/Winter Campaign. This campaign follows the appointment of Lily-Rose Depp as the new face of Chanel No. 5. Willow Smith is the 15-year-old daughter of actors Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith. Lily-Rose is the 17-year-old daughter of actor Johnny Depp and model/singer Vanessa Paradis.
These teen children of celebrities are being called on to represent the most current brands in youth, beauty and fashion. Born into fame and wealth, there is little they need to do other than become teenagers before advertisers come knocking to tap into the perfect variety of cool that can be aligned with all sorts of brands.
Chanel is a major fashion house with the price tags of the clothing and leather goods being well out of reach of the average teenager. But Karl Lagerfeld is no fool. By tapping into the cultural zeitgeist of generation z and the millennials and becoming a presence, a brand that is desirable and cool, the image is fashioned in their minds for when they can afford it. And in the meantime they can buy Chanel’s beauty and makeup products or their eyewear. Which is why it makes sense that Willow Smith is the face of Chanel’s new eye wear collection.
I had a lot of fun on the Chanel landing page featuring Willow Smith. In a play on technologies, there is a short video where Smith gets into a photo booth to ham it up before cutting and pasting the photos into a journal and signing her name. This is the old school version of talking a selfie and then posting it on social media with a comment for everyone to see, but a lot more fun to watch.
There are black and white images of Willow looking ultra chill, and another video of her, swaying, dancing and posing and looking pretty great doing it. Not everyone could pull that kind of thing off and still look authentic, which Smith managed. Her awesome hair and clothes help, but ultimately it is her ‘inner’ style and charisma that is what works. There are lot of links to the sunnies and glasses as well as some more stills of Smith.
Willow Smith was on a shoot for V magazine, when she met the creative director Karl Lagerfeld in 2014. She attended Chanel’s runway show for their AW16 collection in Paris of March this year, and shortly after was announced as one of Chanel’s new ambassadors. Other faces of Chanel include Kristen Stewart, Tilda Swinton, Keira Knightly and Gisele Bundchen.
This is a promising coup for Willow Smith, and we hope to see more of her. With her family background in acting, maybe we will see her on our screens next; who knows? But one thing is for sure. The next generation of celebrities – as in literally the children of the already famous – have an edge on the rest of those chasing fame, fortune and notoriety.
