Chanel’s advent calendar has been all over our FYP on TikTok.
The French luxury fashion house released a special calendar to mark the centennial anniversary of the brand’s No. 5 perfume.
The one-of-a-kind calendar was designed to look like a perfume bottle, and retails for $825 (approximately €734).
According to the Chanel website, “this collector’s item is comprised of 27 boxes numbered from 5 to 31, each of which contains a full-sized fragrance or makeup product, a miniature or another surprise marked with Gabrielle Chanel’s lucky number.”
TikTok user Elise Harmon (@eliseharmon) bought the now sold-out calendar and has been reviewing it on the popular app, and let’s just say she isn’t very happy with her purchase.
In her first video, she opened the calendar and gave it “10 out of 10” for packaging, but was “super bummed out” when she opened day 9 and realised it contained Chanel stickers.
“This has to be a joke,” Elise said. “Stickers? Stickers?”
@eliseharmonWorth the hype? Probably not but it is pretty♬ It’s Beginning to Look a Lot like Christmas – Michael Bublé
She was happier with box number 7, which contained a Chanel hand cream.
In other videos, the social media star opened up more of the calendar for her 244.7K followers.
The boxes opened contained a pouch, a flip book of pictures, a string and plastic bracelet, two keychains, two more stickers, a bookmark, a magnet, a paperweight, a safety pin, a mirror, a badge and a plastic snow globe.
It also contained a mini body cream, two mini red lipsticks, a full sized nail polish, a tiny perfume, and a Chanel No. 5 perfume in number 25 for Christmas Day.
Elise’s videos have been viewed millions of times, with many criticising the brand in the comment section.
One user wrote: “Girl if you don’t return this box of junk.”
Another penned: “Bestie get a refund that’s ridiculous.”
@eliseharmonI’ll lay everything out and show you all of the contents and you can tell me if you think it’s worth it ##chaneladventcalendar♬ Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree – Brenda Lee
Bruno Pavlovsky, president of fashion and president of Chanel SAS, responded to the backlash on Monday, telling WWD: “This controversy is a bit of a shame because it was not what Chanel intended.”
“Chanel thought it would please some of its customers by offering this type of product. Evidently, we see that you have to be careful and therefore, in future, we will certainly be much more cautious.”
Chanel also denied blocking Elisa on TikTok, saying: “We have never blocked access to the Chanel TikTok account to anyone, because it is simply not active.”
“It has never been activated, no content has ever been published, it has no subscriber and no subscription. The page therefore appears empty to anyone who visits it.”
@eliseharmon bless this mess
“When Ms. Harmon visited our page, she naturally found the usual message that she could not access this account, just like anyone else on the network,” they explained.
“We are very committed to sharing our world and our creations with our followers on social networks. Our pages are open to everyone, and millions of followers follow us all over the world.”
“They are of course free to express their feelings and opinions, whether they are enthusiastic or critical, if they respect the rules of good conduct in accordance with the uses of social networks — no defamation, calls to violence, threats, or intimidation.”
“We are aware of the comments that are currently visible under our publications and are sorry that this calendar may have disappointed some people.”
“Directly inspired by the mythical silhouette of the No.5 bottle, this calendar, only available for a short period, has a unique design and an original content, which makes it a true collector’s item whose value cannot be summed up by the products it contains alone.”
