Influencers in Russia are cutting up their Chanel bags to protest Russophobia
Influencers in Russia, including DJs, models and Instagram users with millions of followers, have taken to social media to protest against ‘Russophobia’ by chopping up their Chanel bags.
Chanel has recently joined other brands such as McDonald’s, Coca Cola, Starbucks, L’Oreal, Estee Lauder, and Burberry, which have either suspended sales in the country or ceased production or sales completely in response to Russia’s invasion of neighbouring Ukraine. McDonald’s and Starbucks, for example, have completely shuttered a total of 950 restaurants and coffee shops in the country.
Chanel’s move to screen Russian shoppers around the world, including asking some customers to declare that they do not live in Russia permanently and will not take their Chanel items to the country, has not been taken lightly by the brand’s Russian fans.
Victoria Bonya, a Russian model, posted a video to her Instagram account of her chopping up her black Chanel bag, saying “I have to say that Chanel does not respect its clients, so why do we have to respect Chanel?”
Russian TV presenter Marina Ermoshkina used a pair of garden shears to destroy her grey Chanel bag, writing: “Not a single item or brand is worth my love for my motherland and my self-respect. I am against Russophobia, I am against a brand that supports Russophobia.”
Ermoshkina then followed up with another post on her social media, writing:
“Friends, I’m very happy to have drawn your attention to the problem of Russophobia with my Challenge. It was not only to express the position of Russians, but of course to help people. I still have some Chanel items left. Of course, I won’t ruin them again. It was done once to cause a public outcry. I want to sell all the Chanel items I own and give the proceeds to help the victims in Donbass. And I’ve just sent the first instalment (part of the cost of my cut bag).”
Anna MacDonald, a fund manager at Amati Global Investors, told the BBC that shareholders “wouldn’t stand” for the continued profits from Russia and that “it was affecting their share prices and the feeling was that it was just utterly inappropriate to continue to do so.”
It seems that brands are caught between not wanting to punish the Russian people for the actions of their government, and not wanting Russia to benefit in any way from sales of their items, with the proceeds then possibly being used to fund the heinous war crimes being committed in Ukraine.
Only days ago, horrendous images surfaced from the city of Bucha in Ukraine. In photographs that Boris Johnson labelled as ‘not short of genocide’, bodies lay on the ground with their hands tied behind their backs, as well as reports of mass graves in the area. Recently intercepted radio messages which prove that the Russians deliberately murdered civilians in the city have reportedly been uncovered by Germany in the wake of the atrocities.
