Chanel launches images of latest ambassador Penelope Cruz

By

Godfrey Deeny

Published
Oct 10, 2018

Chanel has launched the images of its latest ambassador, Penelope Cruz, shot by Karl Lagerfeld making her debut voyage in the house’s latest cruise collection.
 
Cruz joins a rarefied list of Chanel plenipotentiaries that encompasses a massive crew of luminaries; Keira Knightley, Lily Rose Depp, Gaspard Ulliel, Margot Robbie, Caroline de Maigret, Kristen Stewart, Alma Jodorowsky, Liu Wen, Marine Vacth, Vanessa Paradis, Anna Mouglalis, Tilda Swinton, Ella Purnell, Ellie Bamber, Pharrell Williams, Soo Joo Park, Rinko Kikuchi and G-Dragon.

 
Shot by the house’s creative director Lagerfeld, the photos show Cruz in a nautical mood with variety of berets, bare shoulder tops, striped blouses and classic double-breasted white boucle blazers with pearl buttons.
 
The clothes are all from the 2018/19 cruise collection Lagerfeld designed for the house, which was shown beneath a giant ocean liner in May this year in the Grand Palais.

“My earliest memory isn't of a boat, but of the sound of a boat,” says Lagerfeld.
 
In other images Cruz wears backless evening dresses; cardigans for a stiff sea breeze; and a white cashmere sweater with the name La Pausa, referring to the famous villa that Coco Chanel designed in the 1930s. Recently acquired by Chanel, La Pausa is also the name Karl used to christen the mock-up liner, inside which he later feted this collection.
 
Born in modest circumstances in a village close to Madrid, Cruz is Spain’s most famous actress, appearing in some 77 films, including Volver, Pirates of the Caribbean, Vanilla Sky and Blow. In 2009, Cruz won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Most recently, she appeared as Donatella Versace in American Crime Story, a dramatization of the murder of Gianni Versace. Though the Italian bombshell is perhaps not the first name to come to mind when one thinks of a classic Coco gal.

 
Cruz first attended a Chanel show back in 1999, and even wore several outfits by Chanel in Pedro Almodóvar’s 2009 movie Broken Embraces.
 
This summer, she collaborated with Swarovski to create a collection of created gemstone and diamond pieces that were unveiled at Cannes.
 
But for her first fashion shoot for Chanel, the Spanish actress looked more than ready in Lagerfeld's elegant images for everything that her latest fashion expedition holds in store.