When Russian TV presenter Marina Ermoshkina learned that employees at a Chanel store in Dubai, UAE, refused to sell a handbag to a Russian customer — after asking her to sign a document stating that she would not wear the item in Russia,” she reacted in shock.
Ermoshkina, 28, bought gardening shears and filmed herself cutting her Chanel bag in half. She posted the video on Instagram. “It’s Russophobia,” she said from Moscow. “The purest discrimination.”
Hundreds of thousands of people watched the video, which was also shown on Russian TV. Shortly afterward, Victoria Bonia, a Russian social media influencer with 9.3 million Instagram followers, followed the presenter’s example, scissoring a Chanel bag that sold for thousands of dollars.
“If Chanel doesn’t respect its customers, why should we respect Chanel?”, she asks in the video, as she tore apart the iconic French brand’s bag. Like many international companies, Chanel suspended its operations in Russia in response to the invasion of Ukraine ordered by Vladimir Putin.
In addition to temporarily closing stores and suspending deliveries to Russia, Chanel has begun asking customers in its global stores to certify that the items they buy will not be used in Russia.
In a press release, the company said it was trying to comply with EU and Swiss sanctions that prohibit “the sale, supply, transfer or export, directly or indirectly, of luxury goods to any individual or legal entity, entity, or body in Russia or for use in Russia”.
The company said the ban applies to luxury items whose value exceeds €300 per item, which is the case for most Chanel products, which infuriated Ermoshkina.
For her, withdrawing from Russia was the company’s choice, but the policy of preventing customers from taking her items into the country is discriminatory and humiliating. “If all women are equal, why does Chanel discriminate against women based on their nationality?” she said.
Chanel declined to comment on the reactions of Russian celebrities, but in its statement apologized “for any misunderstanding this may have caused”. “Serving well all our customers, regardless of their origin, is a priority for Chanel.” The company acknowledged that “this law enforcement process has been frustrating some of our customers.”
Ermoshkina said she appreciated that Chanel had apologized, but that the company’s response was not entirely to her satisfaction. She has put up all her other Chanel items for sale and said she will donate the proceeds to an association that assists people in the Donbass, the region of eastern Ukraine where many people are Russian-speaking.
Other influencers followed suit, refusing to wear items from the brand. Some echoed Ermoshkina’s words: “No purse, no object, is worth as much as my love for my homeland.”
One of them is DJ Katia Guseva, who always dreamed of owning a Chanel bag, like the Hollywood celebrities she admired. But recently she told her 500k Instagram followers that she doesn’t need the bag anymore. On WhatsApp, she wrote: “We will continue to live perfectly well without Chanel.”
