Forget Keith, Nicole Kidman teaches Meghan Markle a lesson in Paris
The award-winning actor has – in the space of a week – announced her 19-year marriage to Urban is over, called in the lawyers, become an ambassador for a fancy Japanese face cream, packed up the kids and jetted to Europe to sign a lucrative contract with Chanel.
She is the Kofi Annan of fashion.
She’s rolling out a publicity campaign to rival that of one of her movies, or Andrew Hastie’s.
She is playing the press better than Reece Walsh played Melbourne on Sunday.
The difference is she’s scoring without appearing to try.
Kidman is chic, she’s calm.
She’s brilliantly calculated.
That’s the narrative intended to be communicated through the most recent photos flooding social media overnight, flanked by her daughters Sunday Rose and Faith Margaret at the fashion shows in the French capital.
She is dripping in symbolism. You think the three of them wearing jeans to the most highly anticipated show of the season was a casual decision?
Team Mum is embodying advanced maths right now.
Kidman’s strategy is on par with something out of the Pentagon. Culturally, Chanel is the label of choice for wealthy divorcees.
In Sex and the City, the character of Charlotte York wore a skirt from the house’s archives to a meeting with her divorce lawyer.
Kidman is Chanel’s “new house ambassador” after the brand’s brand new boss, Matthieu Blazy, debuted his first collection.
This is a promotion from her first rodeo in the rive gauche. She was previously the face of Chanel No 5 perfume when Karl Lagerfeld was in charge and starred in a two-minute Baz Luhrmann-directed commercial in 2004.
She’s now come out of this separation with this new fashion-focused deal still smelling like the fragrances’s famous May roses.
Last week, she was honoured at a dinner as a “global brand ambassador” for Clé de Peau Beauté – where a 100ml bottle of serum will set you back about $500.
Her wedding ring on full display, this week she was shielding her left hand from the glare of the throng of cameras by clutching her daughters’ hands.
Sunday will star in a soon-to-be released commercial with Kidman. The eldest daughter entree to this revenge dish started a few days ago when Sunday was seen pouting all over Paris at film events for director Sofia Coppola and was sat next to Kylie Jenner at the Miu Miu show before going to work with her mother and little sister at the Chanel event.
Broad appeal – Chanel is one of the most well-known fashion labels in the world – lucrative contracts and just the right amount of press in this “trying time” is paying off for Kidman.
No sit-down interviews raking over what went wrong are needed when these pictures of her surrounded by family, including sister Antonia, paint thousands of words and positive perceptions.
It’s the kind of plan Meghan Markle required when she embarked on her return to the continent she quit. Markle attended the Balenciaga show at the weekend to support Pierpaolo Piccioli, who has become the brand’s creative director after years at Valentino.
The burgeoning jam entrepreneur has worn a number of his designs over the years. “By supporting her longtime collaborator Piccioli at this pivotal moment in his career, Markle executed a strategy to cement relationships with high-end brands, demonstrate her cultural relevance in elite circles, and signal to potential business partners that she operates at the highest level,” ELLE magazine breathlessly gushed.
Dressed in a suffragette white pants suit with matching cape, she paraded in front of the paparazzi in slow motion, had a brief encounter with Anna Wintour – the monarch of fashion – before an awkward attempt at an air kiss with the designer post-show.
The duchess then received criticism for posting a video of herself reclining with her feet up in a limousine not far from the site of Princess Diana’s fatal car crash.
Her journey to Paris to sit front row was aiming to position her as a dignified, sophisticated business woman making a mysterious cameo.
Unfortunately for her, it played out like a ludicrous day in the life of Veep’s Selina Meyer.
Therein lies the difference with Kidman’s sympathetic reception.
While “Our Nicole” nailed her re-emergence and repositioning with SAS-like publicity precision, the American in Paris was like the movie: too fancy and overblown.
While Keith Urban is playing on Coles Radio in Pacific Fair, Nicole Kidman has commenced her divorce tour in Paris.