Coco Chanel Film Poster Banned By French

Audrey Tautou poses with the film poster

Transport chiefs in Paris have outlawed publicity images of Hollywood star Audrey Tautou playing style icon Coco Chanel – because she’s shown smoking a cigarette.

In an extraordinary sign of the times, Paris’ transport authority deemed the posters ‘unhealthy and inappropriate’.

The posters show Tautou posing sensuously as the fashion legend responsible for a range of original breakthroughs including the little black dress, round-neck jackets and boucle jackets.

Despite smoking up to 50 cigarettes a day throughout her life, Chanel was 87 when she died in 1971.

Almost all the original photographs of the designer and images from the film show a cigarette in her right hand.

Yet RATP, which runs the buses and trains in the French capital, considered historical accuracy secondary to good health.

‘Cigarettes are banned on our entire transport system, and there is no reason why we should be giving them free advertising through this film poster,’ the company spokesman said.

Coco Before Chanel, the new film starring Tatou, opens in France today. It tells the story of how Chanel rose from a country orphanage to become an international star by founding her eponymous fashion label.

Source: MailOnline

Posted on April 23, 2009 | Filed Under Showbiz