Fashion house Chanel roasted online for $1,025 advent calendar full of stickers, other trinkets | CBC News

The calendar was released this year to celebrate the fragrance’s centennial, which was released by the company’s eponymous co-founder Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel 100 years ago.

TikTok user Elise Harmon obtained one of the kits and broadcast herself opening up its contents, which included a full-sized bottle of hand cream, a miniature tube of lipstick and a bottle containing 35 millilitres of perfume, but was mostly just miscellaneous branded items, including stickers with the company’s logo, a dust bag, a magnet, a bookmark, a key ring, and a flipbook.

“Stickers?” Harmon exclaims in her first video on the unboxing of the kit, which has been viewed more than 14 million times since it was posted four days ago. “This has to be a joke,” she says of the kit, which retails for $1,025 Canadian.

“I’m kinda bummed so maybe I should just open something else,” she said.

Not a bad strategy?

While reaction to the videos has been mostly negative online, marketing expert Scott Stratten says what Chanel is actually selling isn’t that abnormal, by luxury brand standards.

“I could argue that for most luxury brands, you’re paying for a name versus the item you get, but this kind of does push the boundary a little bit,” the founder of Unmarketing told CBC News in an interview.

“The pushback doesn’t equate the actual impact to the brand,” he said. “Every person sharing this right now on TikTok or Instagram or anywhere else is also giving them exposure and marketing [and] if you’re that into Chanel, you don’t really care what other people think about a calendar or a box or an item.”

On its website, Chanel says there are “ultra-limited quantities” of the calendar for sale, and its Canadian website appears to suggest that it is no longer available.

Stratton says he’s not surprised to see it sold out. “A lot of those people will also be going to buy it just to make videos on how much they don’t like it,” he said.

Chanel disputes claims

Harmon claims that after her video went viral, Chanel shut down its TikTok account, but in a statement to CBC News, the fashion house says that isn’t the case.

“It has never been activated, no content has ever been published, it has no subscriber and no subscription,” the company told CBC News in a statement. “The page therefore appears empty to anyone who visits it.”

Although the company says it is “sorry that this calendar may have disappointed some people,” it disagreed that it was somehow being misleading as to what the package actually contained.

“The exclusive content of the calendar has always been fully detailed on our website as well as on the packaging of the product: 27 boxes numbered from 5 to 31, containing full-size perfume and make-up products, miniatures and souvenirs,” Chanel said.

“This calendar, only available for a short period, has a unique design and an original content which make it a true collector’s item whose value cannot be summed up by the products it contains alone.”