After shadowing prolific designer Karl Lagerfeld for two years while producing Lagerfeld Confidential, the candid documentary that was released last autumn, its director, Rodolphe Marconi, confessed: “Suddenly, well, everything just seemed so boring!” Perhaps as a result the 32-year-old award-winning French filmmaker embarked on a new project, allowing him to become intimately acquainted with the one fashion legend who could trump Lagerfeld’s talents: Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel.
Until now, details of the biopic, which Marconi wrote and will direct as of January 2009, have remained top secret, but the project is likely to generate buzz as the Cannes Film Festival kicks off later this week. Budgeted at €50,000m ($77,000) and backed by Christian Fechner , it will star Vanessa Paradis. “I hope Karl will have time to make the costumes,” says Marconi of his cinematic extravaganza.
