ExclusiveWhy Chanel resists selling online, and why menswear isn’t on its agenda: president of fashion at luxury house explains

‘I’m not sure e-commerce is the way to connect with young,’ says Bruno Pavlovsky, who explains Chanel’s opposition to second-hand marketplaces amid war on fakes

He reaffirms brand’s commitment to Hong Kong and reveals Chanel will show its 2020 cruise collection at city’s Kai Tak Cruise Terminal in November

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The Chanel cruise 2020 show in Paris in May. It will be restaged in Hong Kong in November, Chanel president of fashion Bruno Pavlovsky tells the Post. Photo: Olivier Saillant/Chanel

Published: 11:45am, 19 Jul 2019Updated: 8:29pm, 20 Jul 2019

Alain and Gerard Wertheimer, the brothers who own Chanel, are two of the wealthiest and most influential luxury business scions you’ve probably never heard of. Their grandfather teamed up with Coco Chanel in the 1920s to fund her fragrance business, and eventually his heirs took over the entire company.

While the brothers, who according to Bloomberg have a combined net worth of US$42 billion, have never spoken publicly, they’re very involved in day-to-day operations and run the business with a team of loyal lieutenants such as Bruno Pavlosky, president of fashion at Chanel since 1990.

In June 2018, amid rumours of a possible sale of the privately held company, Chanel decided to release its financial results for the first time in more than a century. They showed it to be a thriving US$10 billion business. Figures released this year showed it had grown bigger, with sales surpassing US$11 billion in 2018.

“It was mainly because of all the fake news about Chanel, and about transparency,” says Pavlovsky of the decision to reveal how the company is performing. “We believe that nowadays not being able to communicate our figures is not the right position … We did it for our customers and partners, because we felt it was important to be able to give some transparency and stop any fake news about the power of the brand,” he says.

Bruno Pavlovksy is president of fashion at Chanel.

The power of the Chanel brand, as opposed to the star power of its late creative director, Karl Lagerfeld, has been on the minds of luxury industry observers. Following Lagerfeld’s death in February 2019, Chanel wasted no time in appointing his long-time right-hand woman, Virginie Viard, creative director.