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For more than a century, Chanel has been defined, almost architecturally, by its relationship to women. The house’s codes, from the camellia to the quilted bag, were built upon the philosophy and personal freedoms of Gabrielle Chanel herself. Yet in the past decade, the maison has been quietly, steadily constructing a parallel story: one in which a select group of men, each with potent cultural gravity, become conduits for the brand’s spirit. The appointment of A$AP Rocky as Chanel’s newest ambassador is the latest chapter in this trajectory, and the most symbolically consequential.
Chanel’s modern strategy has increasingly made space for men whose artistry, intellect, and cultural standing expand the house’s dialogue beyond the feminine sphere. Gaspard Ulliel, the late French actor whose brooding presence shaped the world of Bleu de Chanel for more than a decade, was the brand’s earliest and most defining male face. His ambassadorship, beginning in 2010, marked a radical shift.
Timothée Chalamet’s appointment in 2023 pushed that vision forward with a new kind of weight. Shot by Mario Sorrenti and filmed by Martin Scorsese, Chalamet’s campaigns signaled that Chanel’s masculine voice would be cinematic, intellectual, and globally resonant. Kendrick Lamar, with his deep, generational influence across music and culture, offered yet another dimension when he was named an ambassador and fronted a campaign for Chanel eyewear.
It is into this legacy that A$AP Rocky steps, but with a force and multidimensionality uniquely his own.
Even before the official announcement, Rocky had been orbiting the Chanel universe with a frequency that made the industry pay attention. His appearance at the 2025 CFDA Fashion Awards, where he was crowned Fashion Icon, was the moment many insiders now retroactively read as the prelude to his appointment. Standing alongside Rihanna on the red carpet, he wore a sharp black Chanel suit with rolled white cuffs, a butter-yellow knit, coordinated black trousers, and the maison’s signature two-tone shoes. It was a look that was both studiously Chanel and unmistakably Rocky: tailored, elegant, but delivered with an ease only he could own.
Fashion media seized on the symbolism immediately. This was not a guest wearing Chanel, this was a Chanel man. The look quickly became framed as a defining step in his evolution from perennial fashion darling to official house representative. Within months, that prediction materialised.
Just days after Chanel confirmed Rocky’s ambassadorship on November 29, he doubled down on the relationship in a way only a seasoned fashion strategist could. At the 2025 Gotham Film Awards yesterday, where he attended as a nominated actor for Spike Lee’s “Highest 2 Lowest”, he once again appeared in black Chanel tailoring. This time, he styled the suit with a crisp white shirt, striped tie, and a quilted leather Chanel tote, the kind of accessory that subtly but unmistakably communicated the deepening of his affiliation. It was a moment of visual affirmation, worn straight onto a major red carpet just days after the announcement.
But perhaps the true turning point in the Chanel, Rocky narrative unfolded not on a carpet but on a film set in New York. In late October 2025, the rapper and actor joined Margaret Qualley to shoot a Chanel short directed by Michel Gondry. The look, silk pajamas styled as daywear, was quintessentially Rocky: louche, decadent, and elevated. The scene, a romantic street-side proposal setup, played into a cinematic tenderness that few male ambassadors have been able to channel as naturally as he does.
The timing of the film’s release was strategic. Teased mere hours after Chanel publicly welcomed him into its ambassadorial fold, and ultimately tied to the 2026 Métiers d’Art show in New York, the short became the first major campaign project of Rocky’s official tenure. During the show, Margaret and Rocky appeared in the same outfits they wore in the short film, in a life-imitates-art moment.
For Chanel’s creative director Matthieu Blazy, who is shaping new creative identities for the house across fashion, image, and film, the appointment is as personal as it is strategic. “Rocky is an incredible artist who puts his heart and soul into every project he’s involved in, in addition to being an incredible human being. Musician, actor, father, friend… he brings so much to the table and always delivers with kindness. We are thrilled to welcome him to CHANEL and I’m thrilled to work together again,” Blazy said of the partnership.
In Rocky, Chanel gains someone who embodies the dualities the house has always championed: discipline and irreverence, elegance and streetwise edge, artistry grounded in cultural fluency. And in Chanel, Rocky gains a platform that allows the full range of his creative identity, musician, actor, style leader, father, to exist within a single luxury narrative.
Their relationship is not an anomaly in Chanel’s history with menswear. It is the clearest articulation yet of the house’s evolving masculine lexicon. Chanel is still, fundamentally, a womenswear maison. But in choosing men who are deeply influential, culturally literate, and artistically generative, it is building something far more dynamic than a menswear category: a masculine mythology.
A$AP Rocky is now part of that mythology, reshaping it, expanding it, and ultimately defining what it means to be a Chanel man in 2025 and beyond.
