Meet the Russian influencer taking on Chanel: Victoria Bonya cut up her bag to protest the brand, but was just spotted in Dubai with a similar one – and did she really get kicked out of Cannes?
- Victoria Bonya took a pair of scissors to her Chanel handbag when the brand pulled out of Russia to protest its invasion of Ukraine, but it seems it may have just been for show
- Her Instagram followers were quick to point out that she was wearing another Chanel purse in Dubai recently; photos of her wearing clothing with Vladimir Putin’s image surfaced too
A Russian model and influencer posted a photo posing with what appeared to be a Chanel bag on Instagram on September 3 – five months after she cut up a bag from the fashion house to protest its closure of Russian stores.
“If Chanel house does not respect its clients, why do we have to respect Chanel house?” Bonya said in an Instagram video posted on April 6, in which she appeared to cut a quilted Chanel bag into two pieces using a pair of industrial scissors.
“Don’t you cut the same bag from the photo?” one commenter asked, while other top comments, which were written in Russian but can be translated on the Instagram app, appeared to mock the influencer.
“Chanel is back???” asked one commenter, with another saying, “Chanel cut bag on point,” which received 470 likes at the time of writing. “She has been raised,” another commenter responded.
In an Instagram statement posted on April 11, Bonya said that she would be auctioning “all” her Chanel bags and giving the proceeds to “people who are in need in this current situation”.
“Chanel’s discrimination towards Russian customers based on their nationality is unspeakable and unacceptable. When did fashion become a political discriminatory tool against nationalities?” she captioned the post.
