Meet the Russian influencer taking on Chanel: Victoria Bonya cut up her bag to protest the brand, bu
“If Chanel house does not respect its clients, why do we have to respect Chanel house?” Bonya said in an Instagram video posted on April 6, in which she appeared to cut a quilted Chanel bag into two pieces using a pair of industrial scissors.
On September 3, Bonya posted a picture of herself sitting inside a car, with a caption saying she was visiting Dubai. Commenters were quick to notice that the bag Bonya was wearing in the picture appeared to be a black Chanel bag that looked similar to the one she destroyed in her April video.Where is Rupert Murdoch’s ex and Ivanka Trump’s pal Wendi Deng now?
“Don’t you cut the same bag from the photo?” one commenter asked, while other top comments, which were written in Russian but can be translated on the Instagram app, appeared to mock the influencer.
“Chanel is back???” asked one commenter, with another saying, “Chanel cut bag on point,” which received 470 likes at the time of writing. “She has been raised,” another commenter responded.
In an Instagram statement posted on April 11, Bonya said that she would be auctioning “all” her Chanel bags and giving the proceeds to “people who are in need in this current situation”.
“Chanel’s discrimination towards Russian customers based on their nationality is unspeakable and unacceptable. When did fashion become a political discriminatory tool against nationalities?” she captioned the post.
Chanel stores are currently still closed in Russia, and the brand has also stopped selling products to Russian consumers outside the country, according to the BBC. Various Russian citizens have taken to social media to say they were turned away from Chanel stores while shopping in other countries.
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In a statement provided in April, a representative for Chanel said the brand complied with “all laws” applicable to its operations and employees, including trade sanctions.
Bonya typically posts modelling content on Instagram, and also has a TikTok account with 455,000 followers, where she films herself getting ready for modelling shoots.
The influencer faced intense backlash in May when she appeared on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival. Some Twitter users said that Bonya should not have been invited to attend the event, citing pictures of the model that had resurfaced in various news articles that showed her wearing a T-shirt and swimsuit bearing Putin’s image.
According to British media, a spokesperson for the Cannes Film Festival explained that a “few” Russian media outlets whose beliefs correspond to the “anti-war position of the festival” were invited to attend the event, but did not provide an explanation for Bonya’s presence at the festival when approached for comment.
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In a series of Instagram posts from May, Bonya said she was “invited” to the festival but was “discriminated against” while at the event, saying she was asked to step off the red carpet, though she did not say by whom, in a caption under one post that was written in Russian but can also be translated on the Instagram app.
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