Chanel has finally presented her "official" new in-house model, Anna Mouglalis (the "s" is silent). The press release about her contract was sent in May, so it took them 6 months do decide what to do with her. Judging by the results, they should have taken six months more.

Mouglalis was a typical MAW (Model, Actress, Whatever) before she met Karl Lagerfeld. He was moonlighting -- Lagerfeld loves money -- as a film costumes designer in an historical movie she appeared in. According to the official storyboard from Chanel PR, he decided "on the spot" (yeah, sure) that this girl should be the next Chanel girl. It's really difficult to understand why.

She looks a bit like Ines de la Fressange (Ines was, and still is, much prettier), the best Chanel girl ever. After Lagerfeld fired Ines over a stupid argument, he never found a model like her again. They were either invisible (even I can't remember the names), or great supermodels who didn't agree to sign the exclusive clause in the standard Chanel contract, so were not recognised as Chanel girls anyway: Claudia Schiffer, Christy and Linda, Angela Lindvall and the such.

Now, this girl ain't Angela, that's for sure. In her first portfolio for Chanel (pic above, bigger frame and scan here), published this week in ELLE France, she is presented by Lagerfeld as a caricature of a Parisian lady. She looks like the French mistress in American movies: a table in La Closerie des Lilas, a paris-beurre sandwich, an empty glass of wine, and a slightly messed-up shirt, like she's just back from a romantic interlude. Only the beret is missing.

Mouglalis gets also the cover, with a prominent mention of Chanel (I've put the scan here). it's a kind of "shocking" fashion cover, because she wears denim with Chanel. Only it's been 14 years since Anne Wintour's most famous cover, Michaela Bercu in Place de la Concorde wearing denim and Christian Lacroix, so if anything, the same styling today looks conservative and reactionnary, not shocking at all.

You'll all probably prefer Mouglalis in this old Numero photo.