A wave of short films about fashion has swept over us in recent years. Designers collaborating with well-known filmmakers, actors and artists has become an increasingly common way for them to show off their latest collections.

Luxury brands at the forefront of the trend: Dior has made a series of short films directed by people such as master of surrealism David Lynch. Yves Saint Laurent has had the well-known fashion photographer and filmmaker Bruce Weber capture one of its collections on film. Lady Gaga has collaborated on film projects with both Thierry Mugler and Alexander McQueen, and also caused server crashes due to too many visitors to both McQueen’s and Mugler’s websites in connection with launches.

The most talked-about fashion film director of them all is none other than Chanel’s top designer Karl Lagerfeld. He has long been the photographer for many of Chanel’s campaigns and can now also, from a couple of years back, call himself an acclaimed film director. His latest short film for Chanel, “The Tale of a Fairy”, premiered on 9 May in connection with the launch of Chanel’s Cruise collection. The film featured Lagerfeld’s muses: the Danish supermodel Freja Beha Erichsen and the French actress Anna Mouglalis, who also played Coco Chanel herself in the film “Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky”, which came out in 2009.