Charles Finch Says Luxury Brands Are “Naturally Evolving” Toward Making Feature Movies
16.02.2023 - 21:41
/ deadline.com
EXCLUSIVE: Luxury labels are “naturally evolving” toward producing and making their own indie feature films, says Charles Finch, founder and chief executive of Finch and Partners, the consulting firm that has been the prime mover in enabling “a synergy of content” between the entertainment sector and the crème de la crème of brands.
For 25 years, Finch tells Deadline, “we have either represented studios in helping to promote their programming or we have brought enormous luxury deals to artists, and we continue to do those deals. …But, of course, what we hope is that sooner or later one of these super-brands will actually commit to making feature film programming.”
He adds, ”Not only are they dressing them, but they’re supporting their causes, and I’m trying to push luxury groups into stepping one step closer” to go beyond, for instance, the short films Prada’s creative director Miuccia Prada has championed at the label.
A variety of brands have worked with top directors to shoot content for commercials and advertisements. Finch says he remembers the three-minute No 5 the Film short Baz Luhrmann shot for Chanel nearly two decades ago. “That was a game-changer. The features are next,” says Finch.
“That’s the future of it, and that’s what they’re naturally evolving towards,” Finch believes. And some of the brands they work with — Chanel, Dior, Hermes, Gucci and Zegna — are inching in that direction, though for now he has no sense of a timeline for when luxury houses will start producing their own features. “The conversations are happening, though, with our encouragement.”
Clair Ingle-Finch, the group’s managing partner, notes that the labels want to be at the intersection of “investing and supportive of emerging