COCO Magazine, from palette to paper

COCO Magazine, a compelling concept of beauty 

Whatever Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel set her mind to, there was always space to shape her ideas differently. She worked unhindered by trends or rules. She set her own standards and gave women the authority to shape theirs. Whether designing dresses whose silhouettes defied the standards of the day or makeup in classic or contemporary palettes, ‘Coco’ knew that what mattered was an approach to silhouette, colour, pigment, scent, and texture that celebrated our different shades and facets.

Makeup reflects the present or captures a moment in time yet always assumes our individuality. It is about ritual, exploration, and creative application. It celebrates colour left to interpretation. Blue may mark the zeitgeist, but the same hue lands on each face differently: each look is unique, celebratory, and a reflection of selfhood. Coco Chanel understood this philosophy, embracing the now in a way that remained true to her guiding principles of quality and distinct imprint. She embraced new territory, ideas and notions with a fearless irreverence that set her apart from her contemporaries.

words by Leigh Maynard images courtesy of CHANEL

Today, her house still commands the same uncompromising vision, authority, and commitment to high calibre. That same humour and curiosity keep the house of CHANEL, like its founder, at the forefront of our minds. It’s a vision shared by Thomas du Pré de Saint Maur, Head of Global Creative Resources, Fragrance and Beauty. Thomas is no stranger to innovation and culture. He honed his skills across many prestigious fashion houses. His passion for beauty began at an early age, alongside his initiation into the arts and literature. The cerebral and the conceptual underpin his work at CHANEL today as he continues this legacy of exploration, taking the house into the realms of magazine publishing.

5’ELEVEN” sat down with Thomas to look at the first edition of COCO magazine. The Makeup issue echoes the multifaceted layers of make-up itself. Whether shimmering metallics or matte red, the house's distinct palette brings drama, joy, and enthrallment. One slick of red upon our lips has the power to transport, transfix, elevate, and revolutionise our internal and external narrative, as does this new, rich and thought-provoking publication.

For the inaugural issue of COCO Thomas has brought together tastemakers and trailblazers who’s work embodies the aesthetic ethos around colour and beauty set by its namesake. COCO magazine asks us to examine and enjoy makeup in a new light. It invites us to explore its daring side, experiment, and discover its power through a new medium. It aims to start conversations that would have galvanised and gripped Mademoiselle Chanel herself.

The Philosophy of Connectivity

To create a publication that fully represents the spirit of Mademoiselle CHANEL and the house itself is to embrace her character and philosophy while resonating with today’s audience. Much of what she stood for was modern then and seems contemporary today. Thomas articulates how the idea of connectivity was very relevant in the magazine’s inception. "It’s interesting because, if you look at Gabrielle Chanel, besides being a great creator, she was also a catalyst. She brought together different kinds of talent from various fields in which she worked or collaborated. I like the idea of bringing together, in the same product and magazine, elements of culture, design, and history. That's what I like: this real mix and connectivity."

CHANEL on Beauty and Self-Expression

If Coco were here to edit this edition, no doubt she would champion innovation and individuality. Thomas imagines she would continue the conversation she began years ago, discussing personal expression, femininity in all its forms, and challenging trends, and convention. “I think one thing would be a conversation about how do you move within makeup? I think a lot of our conversation about, for instance, fashion was about the fact that she didn't like women to change, to be forced to change fashion during different moments because she felt that it was too contrived, and she felt that the fact of having something which allowed a woman to move in would be a great way to surface your own personality. So, I think she would love that conversation about how, although beauty isn't directive, it can still show a look or something, and it's also an invitation to be more yourself. I think this idea about what's right about being over-made and under-made, in a way, I think she would love that conversation.”

Colour’s Narratives

Thomas explains, these contrasting narratives are central to COCO’s debut issue. “In the first issue, there was something about that in the diversity of the visual stories. It's interesting because I think there is also something with emotion and intensity, something precise and yet diverse. For instance, all the stories tell, in different ways, the relationship between how makeup allows you to explore visually, physically, and emotionally a different dimension of yourself without really losing yourself. And I think this is how you can be diverse while remaining unified or unique. That's the essence.”

Bringing together photographs, concepts, and type that feel fresh yet uphold the house's quality is something COCO does cleverly. Talented photographers like Julen Martinez Leclerc infuses his work with playful surrealism while accomplished historian and writer Kassia St Clair asks us to consider the intellectual, emotional, and cultural implications of colour, its science and its magic. From baroque painters who risked bankruptcy to great thinkers like Wolfgang von Goethe, she explores how our understanding of colour shifts over time. Gabrielle understood this when she considered how black could be reframed from something sombre to a hue with powerful simplicity.

Thomas continues this conversation across COCO’s pages, encouraging its visionary contributors to question modern ideals of beauty. He challenges their creative thinking and invites the audience to do the same. Each page offers space for play, inviting us to discover and create new narratives around palettes, to explore colour in relation to trends, past and present, and within our cultural and technological landscape. The magazine gives us permission to read as we wish, left to right, to skim, or to pause. Our reading style lets us stay true to our sense of identity, just as the house of CHANEL so eloquently offers us through style, shade and scent. "I think it's an interesting question nowadays, how trends and social media push people to believe they must behave in certain ways. Is it the freedom that makeup allows you to be diverse without losing yourself? I think it's an interesting question. And it's something that underpins CHANEL as a house in beauty and fashion."

Books, Physicality, and Inspiration

An avid reader himself, Thomas understands the power of narrative and the imagination captured through storytelling, so the magazine’s conceptualisation seems a natural progression of his achievements at CHANEL. His personal relationship with literature has shaped his vision, encompassing the house’s rich history, commitment to quality, and concept of modernity. This shows not only in the bold, contemporary visuals and storytelling in COCO magazine, but also in its format. “The first thing my love of books brought is the love of the physical object. It may sound strange, but when I read, I am happy to handle an object, to stop and put it down. There is something physical about how you get into it, and this is why I wanted to do a physical magazine rather than a digital one. I've always been fascinated by how people consume magazines. Do people read from start to finish or from the end to the beginning? Why do you sometimes want to start on one side? I like that versatility. Then I think about the books that influenced me. Reading books about Matisse makes me think about colour. I'm a big fan of the Fauvist and Nabi periods of painting, which are dense in colour and juxtaposition. Maybe that influenced me to want something very colourful."

Thomas' vision echoes Mademoiselle Chanel’s mantra, exploring uncharted territory, whether through text or visuals, in a way that maintains the quality and recognisable iconography of the house while also bringing freshness. “I like the friction; I like the things that don't feel obvious in association on paper but look good when it comes together. I think we live in a period where everything has to be safe and work well together. I do believe that friction and unexpectedness make a lot of sense. And there is one thing that I was very much driven by when we talk about books, especially coffee table books. I love that images aren't backlit in books and magazines. And I think we don't realise how much the screen's backlighting changes our appreciation of beauty and colours, and our perception of colour. It's way more demanding to create a great image that is not backlit than to create one that is. It's like in most social media images: the light is on, but nobody's home. On the contrary, I want somebody home. I love social media for other reasons, but there are moments where printing makes a lot of sense.”

Curating Talent and Moving Beauty Towards Culture

COCO magazine was not only a platform to push notions of beauty and colour for the audience, but also a space to inspire its creatives to explore new facets of make-up. And that dialogue between individual interpretation, creativity and cohesion in the issue is something the magazine masterfully delivers.

Thomas knew how important it was to work with a team who understood his vision while approaching beauty from differing perspectives, but that could also find that delicate balance between the core values of the house and CHANEL’s exploratory philosophy,

“The choices and the variety of the talent, I wanted something that was diverse and eclectic in the look and feel, but that was singular in its dimensions. I love the fact that Drew Vickers [photography] is almost a Sarah Moon-esque type of image, where you pretty much lose the narrative only to keep the emotion, or, like Julien Martinez, there's a sense of hyperrealism.”

As we leaf through tactile pages, imagery and themes feel at once contemporary and considered; each turn offers a new opportunity to think differently, to delve into the details, or to step back and view with a fresh perspective. Eight original covers not only play with conventions but also capture contrasting points of view. Funmi Fetto takes a look at a classic CHANEL emblem, the red lipstick, and asks us, ‘What's in a name?’ while Bobby Doherty considers the nuance of shades. In long-form pieces, we discover ideas such as the eternal appeal of lip gloss, its history and evolution, seeing pigment and palette not only as paint but as accompaniment through our lives, an echo and champion of our achievements. “I think this is why we don't only have images, but there's quite ambitious content. And a lot of the time I was asking myself, or in conversation with people about, for instance, the ‘Colour Flux’ story, which is a long story to read. And I wondered if it was too long, if we were going to lose the audience, if they would get bored. I think you have to have a little ambition for your audience. To think, ‘oh, people can't read more than three lines.’ If you give them two lines, they won't read more than two lines. But I'm ambitious for our readers because I do believe that if you're not ambitious you don't progress.”

Through pictures and prose, COCO magazine moves the conversation about beauty and makeup perhaps further away from a purely consumer identity and closer to culture. “So, I think that was a reason why I wanted something that had a great cultural dimension to it”, Thomas elaborates. “Because a lot of the time I read so many things about how luxury is shallow and superficial. Absolutely not. When it's grounded in culture, it has universal resonance and historical resonance. I think maybe there's one thing I try to get in throughout: the in between. I think we live in a world where everything just seems to be either this or that. And I've been, for instance, very interested to see in the art world over the past five years, the return of surrealism. Whether it's for what was at the Biennale a few years ago, there's a great Leonora Carrington exhibition in Paris, where you see that some artists try to get us to understand that it's way more complex. And I think that complexity is the base of a great society. So, it's also that idea of something complex, something which is not just this or that, or just one direction.”

Authentically CHANEL

It is the diversity of concepts and approaches that makes COCO Magazine feel as fresh as a new makeup palette, while retaining its authentic CHANEL spirit as it explores an entirely new territory for the house. There is no doubt that Mademoiselle Chanel would be invigorated to see continued exploration, but doing so in such a fresh way takes vision and commitment. Thomas explains how this is achieved. “I think first I would say it's the posture, and somehow, we say the radicality because when you start to do a magazine, and you say, 'Let's do something different, ' we have to be honest: the economic, the financial moment. We always say, "But how much is it going to cost?" "Can we just reuse things?" I think what I'm very proud of is that for the very first time in beauty, but in most of the luxury, the content of this magazine is unique to the magazine. So, there are no campaigns that are in between. Everything is fresh, exclusive for the magazine. Nothing will be used outside of the magazine. So, it's not like we're going to pull out a story and reuse it. I think this is something very CHANEL. The ambitions and the integrity in terms of talent, in terms of craft, but also the fact of saying, "It's just one thing, and it's all for it." So, I think that's the first dimension. I think for the second, CHANEL is a mix of something quite classical and whimsical. You need both to be excited. And I think it's fresh, it has a sense of humour, it's a bit disrespectful in some of the imagery. But in the meantime, it's a great craft. There's power, there's authority, there's confidence. Not taking ourselves too seriously but doing it with great intention and care. I believe that that's also a CHANEL signature. I think there's an English dimension to CHANEL that I find very interesting. She was very much connected with England and some great Englishmen. And that taught her chic and everything. But also, that kind of distance. It's no surprise that I did it with Katie Lyall also and Charlotte Stockdale, who are really close friends of mine. But I think we have a great spirit in France. In England, you have a great sense of humour. Yes. It's the conjunction, and it's different. And I think that the magazine combines both things.”

Ultimately, as we turn the pages of COCO magazine, we can draw parallels between palette and paper, both mediums of transformation; both continue to reflect our world, shape our outlook, and help us reimagine and express our identity. Both are captivating: one closed at the outset, page by page, gently revealing new ideas and concepts; the other, through the act of application and concealment, reveals our true personality. Both are means of articulation through which we can be authors of creativity or of our sense of self. COCO, the magazine and the woman, are decades apart yet still share many characteristics: effortless elegance, radical thought, humour, irreverence, and a wish to celebrate women’s power, freedom of expression, and each and every individual’s personality. One a compelling leader, the other will compel its readers. A page-turner from the captivating front page, all the way to the back cover.

_______

COCO magazine is available in the UK from today, at the Hydra Gloss Kiosk, an exclusive lip experience located outside the Selfridges Duke Street entrance from 22nd to 29^th of June from 10:00am - 10:00pm, where you’ll find the new ROUGE COCO HYDRA GLOSS collection, comprising 18 shades from timeless nudes to vibrant bolds and limited-edition shades like ÉLECTIQUE in jade green and FABULEUSE in Citrine yellow. With boosted lip care benefits, plumping and hydration, step inside, take your pick from shades inspired by sandy beaches or lively summer nights and flick through the first issue of this limited-edition beauty publication to a soundtrack of summer tunes.