There’s a certain inevitability to Jacob Elordi being announced as an ambassador for Bleu de Chanel. In less than a decade, the Australian actor has gone from his breakout as a menacing jock in Euphoria to taking on a run of increasingly high-profile roles, including starring opposite Margot Robbie in Wuthering Heights and delivering an Oscar-nominated performance in Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein. At six-foot-five, he has the physical presence of a classic leading man, paired with a charisma that made him a natural fit to play Elvis in Priscilla. All of which makes his move into the Chanel universe feel like a logical next step.
“Alfonso Cuarón and I were both keen to explore a world centred around action. It was his idea to approach the campaign like a spy film.”Jacob Elordi
The French fragrance house has just unveiled a new campaign film directed by five-time Academy Award winner Alfonso Cuarón (Y tu mamá también, Children of Men, Gravity) that trades in the usual moodiness for movement. A slick, slightly surreal heist film that sees Elordi in constant pursuit — of a woman, of a bottle, of something more. You might even call it an action film.
“Alfonso Cuarón and I were both keen to explore a world centered around action,” explains Elordi. “It was his idea to approach the campaign like a spy film. We spent a lot of time training, rehearsing, and perfecting everything together. It was thrilling.”
As Thomas du Pré de Saint Maur, Chanel’s global head of creative resources for fragrance and beauty, explains, the pivot is a conscious one. “It’s a radical change,” he says. After more than a decade of campaigns built around introspection and restraint, the new film opts for something more immediate. “There’s a moment in your life where you just say action,” he says, and this film moves — quite quickly and deliberately.
But the shift in tone doesn’t mean a shift in meaning. Since its launch, Bleu de Chanel has been anchored in a simple idea: a man who resists the roles and expectations placed on him and instead defines himself on his own terms. “We’ve been telling the same story for 16 years,” du Pré de Saint Maur says. “A man who doesn’t let anyone else drive his life.”
Bleu de Chanel L’Exclusif pushes further into the house’s signature amber-woody profile — deeper and more concentrated. It’s a more direct and decisive version of the scent’s original formula, one that speaks to today’s fragrance enthusiast — someone drawn to bold, highly concentrated scents and unafraid to invest in them. The film mirrors that shift: an action-driven expression of the same idea. And yet that tension remains, between intensity and the house’s softer, more traditionally feminine codes.
“[Jacob Elordi] has this masculine intensity, but also something soft and tender, which I find very modern.”Thomas du Pré de Saint Maur, Chanel’s Global Head of Creative Resources.
Part of that evolution comes down to Elordi himself. Already, he’s been compared to something of a throwback, an old-school movie star who is both masculine and charismatic, but also mysterious. Directors Paul Schrader and Sophia Coppola have echoed this, comparing him to Richard Gere, Gary Cooper, or even Paul Newman.
Du Pré de Saint Maur agrees. “He has this masculine intensity, but also something soft and tender, which I find very modern,” he says. In the film, the object of desire — the bottle itself — passes between Elordi and his female counterpart in a kind of sensual fight sequence. No one fully possesses it for long. “It’s masculine without being predatory, without being dominant,” he adds.
Chanel’s fragrance campaigns have a long history with cinema and with acclaimed directors like Ridley Scott, Baz Luhrmann, and Martin Scorsese, but hiring Cuarón wasn’t about ticking an auteur box or simply choosing someone who has directed action before, so much as it was finding a director capable of reshaping a familiar story. “I love his work,” du Pré de Saint Maur says. “He doesn’t actually overwork because he’s very intentional in what he does.”
“This new campaign film takes risks and explores fragrance from a new perspective,” Elordi adds. “Through its films and by working with visionary filmmakers, CHANEL continually pushes creative boundaries.”
Just as important is the mindset. For du Pré de Saint Maur, choosing a director means finding someone who doesn’t see commercial work as a step down. The collaboration itself is less open-ended than it might seem. The director’s role is to reinvent how it’s told, not change the brand or ask for it to be 30 minutes long. “If I ask for Romeo and Juliet and he comes back with Macbeth, I’m sorry — wrong pick,” he jokes.
The visual style has pushed Bleu into new territory, but so has the sound, with the film’s score composed by Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter. Previous Chanel films have often relied on a recognizable pop track, but this time, the music is closely synchronized with the movement. “I wanted the music to have suspense,” du Pré de Saint Maur says. “If we could use something which is a bit unexpected and feels a bit more crafted.”
All of the elements — an in-demand leading man, a mini heist film, an action sequence, a score — come together to create something incredibly cinematic, which is part of the draw for Chanel. But, ultimately, this is a film for Bleu de Chanel. To make sure that still comes through, the bottle was written as almost a third character opposite Elordi and model Libby Taverner. It’s ever-present but not forced.
It moves like a Hitchcockian MacGuffin. It’s passed from hand to hand, always just out of reach — but unlike most, it never disappears into the story. It’s the star of the show.
HERO IMAGE: JACOB ELORDI FOR BLEU DE CHANEL, PHOTO COURTESY OF CHANEL.
