Longchamp's Très Paris campaign, created by Fred & Farid in 2020, launched the SS21 collection through an eight-minute short film set in nocturnal Paris with a
ARCHIVELongchamp Très Paris Captures the Soul of a City at Dawn
Longchamp's "Très Paris" is an eight-minute music-video-style short film created by Fred & Farid and released in France in November 2020 to launch the brand's Spring/Summer 2021 collection, replacing a single-celebrity ambassador model with Paris itself as the central creative force.
The campaign centres on a deceptively simple premise: two Longchamp bags are accidentally exchanged between two young women in the whirlwind of Paris by night. What unfolds is a cinematic chase through the city in its pre-dawn hours, populated by the textures of authentic Parisian life — an espresso, an adorable white kitten, a man on a motorcycle, and an inevitable glimpse of the Eiffel Tower. The film draws its emotional spine from the iconic French chanson "Il est cinq heures, Paris s'éveille" — loosely translated as "It's 5 am, Paris awakens" — performed in an exclusive rendition recorded for the campaign by French singer Clara Luciani. That musical choice is not incidental. As the co-founders of Fred & Farid stated, per lbbonline.com, "If you've never seen Paris waking up after a night out on the town, then you've never seen Paris. And that's why this song touches every Parisian. It describes a universal experience that connects us all."
In the French market and beyond, "Très Paris" was positioned by Longchamp and Fred & Farid as a new global brand platform rather than a seasonal advertisement, according to lbbonline.com. Fred & Farid became Longchamp's agency of record in 2020 after the brand considered several New York-based fashion agencies, per lbbonline.com, and this film marked the formal launch of that partnership. The campaign was directed by Lope Serrano of the production company CANADA, lending the short film a distinctive visual language that sits between fashion editorial and narrative cinema. Clapboard scores "Très Paris" at 72 out of 100, reflecting strong creative ambition and cultural specificity paired with the structural challenges of communicating a new brand platform without conventional performance metrics available in the public domain.
ARCHIVELongchamp operates in the accessible-luxury leather-goods and fashion-accessories segment, a position that distinguishes it from ultra-luxury houses and demands a different creative logic. The brand's decision to anchor its global SS21 campaign in an unmediated portrait of Parisian life — rather than in the face of a single famous ambassador — reflects both a reading of its audience and a deliberate repositioning of what the brand stands for. Sophie Delafontaine, Artistic Director at Longchamp, articulated the brand vision that informed the campaign, as quoted by fredfarid.com: "I had in mind a spontaneous, mobile, fluid woman, she rushes into life with independence and freedom." That sensibility is structural to "Très Paris": the film's two protagonists are not celebrities but archetypes of the modern Parisian woman the brand wants to claim as its own.
The strategic context in which the campaign launched in France in November 2020 was exceptionally challenging. The global fashion market faced severe contraction that year due to store closures, tourism disruption, and reduced discretionary spending, with McKinsey reporting an expectation of approximately three to four percent growth before the full pandemic impact was incorporated — a figure that was subsequently revised downward across the industry. Within that disruption, digital content became the primary arena for brand-building, a shift that made the choice of a long-form short film both bold and structurally rational. According to Criteo, twenty-four percent of online luxury consumers planned to buy less in 2020 while thirty-four percent planned to buy more, implying a net increase in online purchase intent that rewarded brands capable of generating genuine digital engagement.
In France specifically, Longchamp faced competition from peers including Sandro and A.P.C. in the accessible-luxury segment, brands that were equally dependent on the symbolic capital of Paris as a point of differentiation. By replacing competitive celebrity logic with a platform built on the city itself, Longchamp claimed a more durable and less easily replicated brand territory.
Lope Serrano of the production company CANADA directed "Très Paris", bringing a visual sensibility rooted in music video and narrative short film — a combination that suits the campaign's hybrid format precisely. The film was created by Fred & Farid Los Angeles, which led strategy and creative, while Fred & Farid Paris handled account management, according to lbbonline.com. That transatlantic division of labour is itself meaningful: an American creative office filtering a deeply French cultural subject, a tension that may have sharpened rather than softened the film's gaze on Paris.
The creative approach, as described by Fred & Farid's co-founders via fredfarid.com, was built on a paradox the agency named explicitly: "No idea. That's the idea." The film's narrative — two bags exchanged by accident, two women in pursuit across nocturnal Paris — is deliberate in its lightness. It refuses the earnest product demonstration that luxury fashion advertising often defaults to, instead using the bag as a plot device rather than a hero object. The SS21 collection appears throughout in the manner of a naturalistic wardrobe rather than a catalogue, styled against the grain of conventional fashion film.
Production of "Très Paris" was complicated by France's COVID-19 shutdown, which created significant logistical challenges before filming could begin, as reported by Shoot Online. Filming a nocturnal Paris during a period of lockdown restrictions demanded both creative adaptation and production resilience, and the resulting footage carries the quality of scarcity — a city unusually quiet and, because of that, unusually cinematic. Clara Luciani's exclusive rendition of the classic chanson was recorded specifically for the campaign, giving the film an original soundtrack that functions as both cultural reference and brand-owned asset. The combination of a known song in a new interpretation, a non-celebrity cast, and a real Paris at an unusual hour produces a creative work that is identifiably commercial but genuinely atmospheric.
No verified third-party performance data for "Très Paris" in terms of sales uplift, brand tracking shifts, or paid media reach is publicly available. What exists in the public record points toward meaningful organic engagement for a fashion short film of its format and length. The campaign recorded 101,467 views, 1,079 likes, and 35 comments on its archived platform presence, figures that represent the documented baseline of audience interaction with the film as a content object. For an eight-minute branded short film — a format that typically underperforms shorter formats on passive-scroll metrics — those numbers indicate active viewer retention rather than incidental exposure.
The structural effectiveness of "Très Paris" is most legibly assessed through its platform consequences rather than its immediate metrics. By July 2022, Fred & Farid had created three global Longchamp campaigns since the partnership began in 2020, according to lbbonline.com, which confirms that "Très Paris" succeeded in its primary institutional objective: establishing a durable creative relationship and a repeatable brand platform. The campaign replaced Longchamp's prior single-celebrity-ambassador model with a city-as-platform logic that, by definition, is infinitely extensible and less dependent on individual talent cycles or negotiation cycles.
Little Black Book covered "Très Paris" positively on November 25, 2020, describing it as a new global brand platform, per lbbonline.com — editorial recognition that carries weight in the industry context in which fashion brands compete for creative credibility. The film's navigation of France's COVID-19 restrictions to deliver a full nocturnal-Paris production represents a category of resilience that the fashion industry in 2020 recognised as its own form of achievement. Clapboard scores the campaign 72 out of 100, a mark that reflects strong cultural intelligence and creative distinctiveness anchored against the absence of publicly verifiable conversion data.
Longchamp's "Très Paris" is an eight-minute short film released in France in November 2020 to launch the SS21 collection. Created by Fred & Farid and directed by Lope Serrano of CANADA, it follows two women exchanging bags across nocturnal Paris, set to a Clara Luciani rendition of a classic Parisian chanson.
Fred & Farid created "Très Paris" for Longchamp, with Fred & Farid Los Angeles leading strategy and creative and Fred & Farid Paris handling account management, according to lbbonline.com. The film was directed by Lope Serrano of the production company CANADA. Fred & Farid became Longchamp's agency of record in 2020.
"Très Paris" features an exclusive rendition of "Il est cinq heures, Paris s'éveille" recorded specifically for the campaign by French singer Clara Luciani. The classic Parisian chanson, meaning "It's 5 am, Paris awakens," provides the film's emotional and narrative framework, connecting the brand directly to an iconic shared cultural experience.
Longchamp replaced its single-celebrity model with a city-as-platform strategy to claim more durable brand territory, per lbbonline.com. Artistic Director Sophie Delafontaine envisioned a spontaneous, independent woman as the brand's muse, and Fred & Farid built a global platform around Paris itself rather than any individual personality.
France's COVID-19 shutdown created significant logistical challenges before filming could begin, as reported by Shoot Online. The production team adapted to lockdown restrictions to capture a nocturnal Paris that was unusually quiet, a constraint that ultimately gave the film a distinctive cinematic atmosphere unavailable under normal conditions.
Clapboard scores "Très Paris" at 72 out of 100. The score reflects strong creative and cultural intelligence — an eight-minute film set in nocturnal Paris with original music by Clara Luciani — balanced against the absence of publicly verified performance data for the campaign in the French and global markets.
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