CHANEL LAUNCHES A MAGAZINE. OBVIOUSLY, IT’S NOT FOR EVERYONE.

While the world collectively sinks into a soup of aesthetic mediocrity and TikTok-filtered taste, Chanel — that eternal emblem of curated elegance and aristocratic detachment — once again reminds us who’s actually in charge. No, it’s not another handbag (though we’d never say no), nor a perfume release pretending to be a revolution. Chanel has taken a turn no one asked for, but everyone will now pretend to have longed for: they’ve launched a magazine. A real one. Printed. With pages. And, scandalously, with substance. In the era of brain-atrophying scrolls and recycled Instagram carousels, Chanel delivers Arts & Culture — part art object, part intellectual flex, and wholly untouchable.

The debut issue is being called a “visual feast” — a phrase that usually precedes an avalanche of vaguely curated Pinterest mood boards. But no. This is 250 pages of meticulously selected archival material, avant-garde musings, and philosophical reflections on the future of culture. There are no “10 ways to update your capsule wardrobe” here. No QR codes to scan for discount codes. Just culture, as seen through the prism of silk-lined gloves and impossibly rarefied taste.

Naturally, you won’t find this magazine at your local bookstore wedged between celebrity biographies and sad paperbacks about becoming your best self. No — it’s available only in selected bookstores in cities that believe in their own mythologies: London, New York, Tokyo. Cities where the smell of old paper costs more than a hotel breakfast. This magazine isn’t about accessibility — Chanel has never done “available to all.” This is about the pleasure of exclusion, the unspoken thrill of knowing something exists that most people will never even touch.

Behind it all is the Chanel Culture Fund, with Yana Peel at the helm — a name that itself functions like a password at the door of culture’s most elusive salons. This isn’t just a vanity project. It’s a statement: Chanel doesn’t chase trends, it funds legacies. It doesn’t follow culture, it frames it. And now, apparently, it prints it too.

Do we need it? Of course not. Will we want it? Unquestionably. Because nothing whispers “taste” louder than a limited-run Chanel magazine left just so on your marble coffee table next to an unopened book by Susan Sontag and a Japanese incense holder you pretend to use. In the end, it’s not about what you read. It’s about what people think you read when they walk into your living room.
And really — isn’t that the point?

Photo courtesy of Chanel/Roe Ethridge