Why Print Still Matters: Thomas du Pré de Saint Maur on Launching COCO

Dig­i­tal Fash­ion and Beau­ty Edi­tor Eve Fitz­patrick

In an age of end­less scrolling and fleet­ing dig­i­tal trends, CHANEL has cho­sen to slow things down. With the launch of COCO, a new print mag­a­zine ded­i­cat­ed to beau­ty, the House is cre­at­ing space for a rich­er con­ver­sa­tion, one that explores make­up through cul­ture, cre­ativ­i­ty, emo­tion and self-expres­sion. At the heart of the project is Thomas du Pré de Saint Maur, Head of Glob­al Cre­ative Resources for CHANEL Fra­grance & Beau­ty, whose pas­sion for lit­er­a­ture, art and sto­ry­telling has shaped some of the brand’s most mem­o­rable cre­ative ventures.

For the lim­it­ed-edi­tion issue, colour takes cen­tre stage, chal­leng­ing per­cep­tions of CHANEL’s famous­ly mono­chrome iden­ti­ty and invit­ing read­ers into a more play­ful, explorato­ry world. We spoke with Thomas about the endur­ing pow­er of print, why sur­prise remains essen­tial to cre­ativ­i­ty, the beau­ty trends he’s ready to move beyond, and how younger gen­er­a­tions are redefin­ing self-expres­sion through makeup.

Avail­able exclu­sive­ly from 22–29 June 2026 at the ROUGE COCO Kiosk out­side the Duke Street entrance of Sel­f­ridges Lon­don, the lim­it­ed-edi­tion COCO mag­a­zine accom­pa­nies the launch of the new ROUGE COCO HYDRA GLOSS, offer­ing read­ers a col­lectible explo­ration of beau­ty, colour and creativity.

E: This mag­a­zine looks incred­i­ble. It’s an incred­i­bly inno­v­a­tive idea for a beau­ty brand to do. So I sup­pose I want­ed to start off by under­stand­ing what were your very first thoughts behind cre­at­ing COCO, and what made you want to cre­ate a mag­a­zine in a dig­i­tal age?

T: First­ly I would say that I had expe­ri­ence in cre­at­ing a mag­a­zine when we cel­e­brat­ed the 100 years of Chanel N°5 back in 2021 with CHAOS Magazine.

It made me realise how excit­ing and rich it is to have a full play­ground, and to express more angles of a prod­uct than just with­in a cam­paign. What I love about lux­u­ry prod­ucts is the abil­i­ty to con­nect the audi­ence via dif­fer­ent fields; whether it’s cul­tur­al — the sta­t­ic; whether it’s human — the emo­tion­al­ly historical.

I’m obsessed with print, and I love print mag­a­zines. I believe that despite what every­body says about it, that print is dead, I believe the con­trary. I want­ed to show that if you do some­thing inter­est­ing in print, peo­ple are drawn to it.

E: And what was it you want­ed the read­ers to feel when they opened the issue?

T: Cer­tain­ly surprised.

Sur­prised, because I do believe that there’s a great ele­ment of Chanel’s pow­er, espe­cial­ly in beau­ty, in its con­sis­ten­cy and coher­ence over time. Which is great as we have become a sta­ple in the indus­try, but I would also say every­body believes they know Chanel through its black pack­ag­ing. So the idea of bring­ing fresh air to Chanel through the use of colour seems to be very icon­ic, clas­sic and powerful.

E: You can def­i­nite­ly feel that joy­ful tone through­out the mag­a­zine with the use of colour com­bi­na­tions. In con­trast, is there a beau­ty role or con­ven­tion that you’d love to see disappear?

T: Well, to dis­ap­pear I’m not so sure. But I’m not into hyper glow. 

I’m a bit bored of the glass skin, hyper glow thing. I do under­stand the use of glow to attract light, but there’s a moment that it becomes too glowy and shiny that it actu­al­ly takes away from the per­son­al­i­ty of the person. 

In the mean­time, I’m hap­py to see that we’re mov­ing away from per­fec­tion in beau­ty. I sup­pose if you’re also a lover of colour like me, then the beige trends weren’t the best.

E: What do you think younger gen­er­a­tions under­stand about beau­ty that per­haps pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tions didn’t?

T: I believe that the younger gen­er­a­tion has a more acute under­stand­ing of self-explo­ration and self-discovery.

I think it seems like it’s less about a sig­na­ture look, but a sig­na­ture feel­ing. I think there’s more ver­sa­til­i­ty and there’s more of an appetite to show your­self through your makeup.

I think in old­er gen­er­a­tions it felt like make­up was a way to be very uni­fied and con­stant, and to cre­ate a per­fect­ed image of your­self. I do believe that now, there’s more of a sense of explo­ration, more curios­i­ty and more appetite.

E: So which par­tic­u­lar con­ver­sa­tions around beau­ty are you most inter­est­ed in right now?

T: I’m always inter­est­ed in look­ing at how much the film or tv indus­try are steer­ing the indus­try. It was fas­ci­nat­ing to look at how Eupho­ria influ­enced the com­mu­ni­ty, or K‑pop for instance. I’m very inter­est­ed in the cross­bor­der conversation.

I also found fas­ci­nat­ing this year’s con­ver­sa­tions on Wuther­ing Heights. There were so many beau­ty con­ver­sa­tions about Margot’s looks. Some­thing that I’m very curi­ous to see in these con­ver­sa­tions is great progress on who’s wear­ing make­up? Who can wear makeup?

E: When you’re cre­at­ing your own work and when you’re look­ing for inspi­ra­tion, where do you tend to go?

T: Of course, I also find inter­est­ing things in images, film and pho­tog­ra­phy. When it comes to image, I’m always most drawn to paint­ings. I do believe in its search to rep­re­sent real­i­ty. Paint­ings cre­ate things that actu­al­ly aren’t exist­ing in real­i­ty, which inspires me when incor­po­rat­ing that into the image of a product.

But that is just one area. A lot of it is keep­ing your eyes open. Look­ing as lit­tle as pos­si­ble at my screen, and as much as I can at life. There’s noth­ing bet­ter than walk­ing in the street and pay­ing atten­tion to where peo­ple look. Or being in an air­port queu­ing to get onto a plane and you’re look­ing at what peo­ple are doing — what they’re making.

This is much more inter­est­ing than social media — see­ing how peo­ple real­ly are.

E: You’ve worked with some incred­i­ble cre­ative tal­ents through­out your career. What still excites you when you meet a new artist, pho­tog­ra­ph­er or filmmaker?

T: I always become very curi­ous when they dis­agree with what I’m try­ing to get them doing. I find this fric­tion interesting.

When they come to me with an idea which is actu­al­ly quite far from what I had imag­ined they would bring, that’s real­ly what I find excit­ing. If you reach out to tal­ent with a pre-estab­lished ambi­tion that they’re just going to repli­cate, it’s very bor­ing. It becomes inter­est­ing if they bring some­thing new.

If they bring some­thing that is per­haps quite unpleas­ant, or some­thing that makes you ask am I real­ly sure that this will work? It forces me to remain liq­uid in my thoughts.

I like a col­lab­o­ra­tive essence. Lib­er­a­tive, but collaborative.

E: That leads quite nice­ly onto the next ques­tion, which is that Gabrielle Chanel was known for chal­leng­ing con­ven­tions. How does that spir­it show up in the work that you do today?

T: I would say one thing, and I’m not talk­ing for me, but glob­al­ly for the cre­ative peo­ple. It’s not that easy now to break con­ven­tions because I think every­one has an opin­ion and is allowed to loud­ly express it.

But I would say that launch­ing a mag­a­zine actu­al­ly goes against the con­ven­tion of now, where it’s all about digital. 

I also think there’s a con­ven­tion nowa­days to be real­ly obsessed with being cool and trendy. I firm­ly fight for being classic. 

I always believe that when I do things that are a bit more demand­ing, a bit more cere­bral, a bit more intel­lec­tu­al, it’s because I know that the per­son I’m going to be address­ing that mea­sure has the abil­i­ty to under­stand it.

E: What con­ver­sa­tions do you hope read­ers con­tin­ue hav­ing after read­ing COCO?

T: The first thing is that I hope that Chanel will remain more in the beau­ty con­ver­sa­tion, as a bold, brave, rad­i­cal, explorato­ry, inno­v­a­tive player. 

The sec­ond thing would be how great make­up is in your tool­box to express your­self in a more con­fi­dent and more sin­gu­lar way.

I think the mag­a­zine will stim­u­late con­ver­sa­tion around the role of make­up and colour with­in makeup.

At a time when beau­ty is increas­ing­ly shaped by algo­rithms, trends and fleet­ing moments of viral­i­ty, COCO offers some­thing more thought­ful: a space for explo­ration. Through colour, cul­ture and con­ver­sa­tion, the mag­a­zine reflects Thomas du Pré de Saint Mau­r’s belief that beau­ty is at its most pow­er­ful when it encour­ages self-expres­sion rather than per­fec­tion. As CHANEL con­tin­ues to chal­lenge expec­ta­tions, whether through a lim­it­ed-edi­tion print pub­li­ca­tion in a dig­i­tal age or a bold new per­spec­tive on make­up, COCO serves as a reminder that cre­ativ­i­ty thrives when curios­i­ty leads the way. Avail­able exclu­sive­ly at the ROUGE COCO Kiosk at Sel­f­ridges Lon­don from 22–29 June 2026, the col­lectible first issue is as much a cel­e­bra­tion of beau­ty as it is an invi­ta­tion to join the conversation.