French luxury company Chanel is being heavily criticised for its holiday season advent calendar that costs $825, yet is seemingly filled with stickers and empty dust bags.
On the social platform TikTok, user @Elise_Harmon uploaded a review of the calendar, saying: “Am I crazy? Absolutely, but I’ve never seen a Chanel advent calendar, so lets see if its worth the hype.”
Filmed as a series of unboxing clips, she starts by praising the packaging, giving it a 10 out of 10. Shaped like a giant bottle of its famous No 5 perfume, it's filled with black and white boxes of differing sizes.
She says that while the boxes containing the gifts start on December 5 (rather than the customary first of the month), the number is an homage to the name of the perfume, and that they continue to December 31, long past the festive holiday to make up for the shortfall.
When she starts to randomly open the boxes, however, things start to go awry. As she opens box No 9 to reveal a set of stickers, Harmon asks, “This must be a joke. Stickers?”
Box No 8 reveals a small empty dust bag, causing one TikTok user to respond that “its a dust bag for your stickers obvi", while another box contains temporary tattoos.
Responding to viewers' requests to open more boxes, Harmon continues to reveal compartments, with box 24 holding a flip book, while a string bracelet with a plastic double C monogram is found in box 17. There is also a paperweight shaped like Chanel No 5, and box 26 has a small metal money clip.
As the unboxing continues, Harmon's disappointment with the contents is increasingly clear, at one point declaring, "I'm done."
While some boxes revealed a full-size Rouge Allure lipstick, a Le Vernis nail lacquer and small bottle of On Hand lotion, many TikTok viewers expressed anger that such low value items are being sold for $825.
Since its upload, the clips have now gone viral, clocking up more than 41 million views. Harmon's final post on the topic was to inform her viewers that Chanel has now blocked her.
During and after the unboxing clips, viewers have bombarded Chanel’s TikTok account with complaints and comments about the advent calandar's perceived poor value for money, with the result that Chanel has since deleted its official account.
