Wealthy Russian socialites shopping in Dubai are outraged that Chanel won’t sell them luxury goods

Wealthy Russian socialites fleeing the conflict to shop in Dubai are furious that Chanel has refused to sell them their favorite luxury goods.

With the imposition of sanctions in the capital Moscow, the luxury brand withdrew from Russia in protest against Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

As Ukrainians and Russians die by the thousands in the terrifying war, socialites are outraged at being left out of etiquette, The Mirror reports.

Russian interior designer and influencer Liza Litvin took to social media to detail how she was denied a Chanel bag in a Dubai mall.

She angrily posted: “I went to a Chanel store in the Mall of the Emirates.

“They didn’t sell me the bag because (watch out!) I’m from Russia!!!””

She claimed that Chanel “has a new order that they only sell after I sign a piece of paper saying I won’t be carrying this bag to Russia.”

“They asked for my credentials and I gave my Russian phone number,” she said.

“Then the manager said that from today they only sell to Russians if they sign an agreement not to carry their items to Russia.”

Several other wealthy Russian women have also complained of having suffered similar hardships.

Singer and TV fashion show presenter Anna Kalashnikova, 37, was outraged after Chanel banned her from buying earrings and a bag in Dubai.

She explained how a store manager told her, “We know you are a Russian celebrity. We know you will be shopping in Russia, so we cannot sell our branded items. »

She posted, “’Oops,’ I thought. Then I remembered that Coco Chanel was not just the mistress of a Nazi officer, but a German intelligence agent.

“So this action of his brand really reminds me of his biography. It’s so low to support fascism and Russophobia.

She announced that she would boycott Chanel in the future.

Influencer Yana Rudkoskaya, 47, a Moscow-based music show producer and wife of Olympic figure skating champion Evgeni Plushenko, is also horrified but does not blame Putin for being deprived of his favorite brand.

“It’s a shock for a woman who has been buying Chanel and Chanel Haute Couture for over 20 years, and who has seen her shows in the front row,” she said.

She had spent more than a million euros at Chanel over the years and therefore found the ban “somewhat humiliating”.

Snezhanna Georgieva, 46, wife of billionaire Artem Zuev who owns a winery in Crimea, said there were ways to pull the strings and circumvent the ban.

“I will love when these brands are back,” she said. “But we know of some stores that are still open when a regular customer calls them.”

Moscow Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused Chanel of joining “the Russophobic campaign to ‘cancel Russia'”.

She said that “during World War II, Coco Chanel herself was a collaborator and agent of the Third Reich”.

Russia was campaigning against fascism in Ukraine, she claimed.

“The Chanel house can return to normal and, as a designer, support Nazism. But now everyone will know.

Chanel’s French headquarters confirmed the new policy and said it was forced to enforce it due to EU and Swiss sanctions on luxury items.

“The latest sanctions restrictions of the European Union and Switzerland prohibit” the sale, directly or indirectly, of luxury items to any natural person, legal entity or entity in the Russian Federation or for use in the Russian Federation Russia,” the company said in a statement.

Customers were asked “to confirm that the products they buy will not be used in Russia”.

Chanel said: “We understand that these measures, to comply with legal requirements, may create some inconvenience for some customers.

“We are currently working to improve the procedure and we apologize for any misunderstandings and inconveniences involved.”

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