My favorite Chanel ad is that of Nicole in that sexy black dress with the No. 5 pendant dangling in the back. That came out the first year of her being their "spokesmodel". That ad used a bit of airbrushing too, as expected with ads. The overall image was that of elegance and sophistication, very much like the real Nicole. According to news report, sales of Chanel No. 5 went up 30% in that first year. Hmm... interesting "correlation" between the image projected in the ad and the sales increase?
I totally don't "get" what Chanel is doing with this new ad. They are introducing a "new" N
o. 5, the Eau Premiere, but they are using a photo from their old photoshoot and simply airbrushing/photoshopping it to look "new". This will be the last holiday season that Nic will be fronting their ad campaign. Next year, it will be Audrey Tautou, a younger actress. I find it
very interesting that Chanel is airbrushing this old photo to make her appear
years younger. It's totally "out of sync" with the video they have of her in that Baz commercial where you see the image of a very glamourous and successful movie star. The new ad projects the image of a young, bored socialite. To me, it's a bit tacky to keep recycling old photos for a new ad campaign simply by using more airbrushing, instead of doing another photoshoot.
Just for comparison, check out these two scans. The one on the left was used in the last holiday season and for most of this year. They did use some airbrushing with that ad. But the new ad on the right went overboard with airbrushing. If I didn't know Nicole is still associated with Chanel No. 5 until the end of this year, I would have said that's NOT her in the new ad and that they simply used a Nicole look-alike.
Click for bigger image:

Here are other photos used in the Chanel ads. I think all of these, including the recent ads, are from the same photoshoot at the time of filming the commercial.

btw.. some other fashion houses are going "older" in their ad campaigns by bringing back the supermodels from a decade ago instead of using the current models who are in their teens or early twenties. If you pick up fashion magazines like Vogue or Elle, you can't miss them.... Linda Evangelista (43), Claudia Schiffer (38), Cindy Crawford (42), Christy Turlington (39), and Naomi Campbell (38).