Chiara Ferragni on Fronting GHD’s New Advertising Campaign
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MILAN — What if the Blonde Salad goes brunette?
“Well, never say never, but I love my hair color, it’s my signature look,” said Chiara Ferragni on Thursday while discussing all things beauty during the presentation of the new GHD Unplugged styler.
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Recently appointed face — and hair — of the brand, the multihyphenate entrepreneur fronts the new global advertising campaign, which popped up via maxi billboards on landmark Milan spots, ranging from the Duomo cathedral to part of the Stazione Centrale train station, where a cocktail party was staged to celebrate the launch on Thursday evening.
Before the event, Ferragni touched base at the nearby Hotel Gallia, arriving not-so-fashionably late to meet the press bedecked in a Christian Dior pre-fall 2021 look. She styled a crop top and matching shorts covered in pink maxi-sequins with black vinyl platform sandals and, most importantly given the occasion, with shiny, straight hair.
“When I’m by myself, I usually go for straight hair, it’s the easiest style and I know it’s going to last two days, unless I’m with my kids and they throw stuff at me,” she joked, additionally recalling that she has been using hair tools since her teenage years.
“My hair is naturally wavy, sometimes even very curly, and I started using the straightener. It was such a look; I wanted to have straight hair and black eyeliner all the time: That was my go-to style,” she said, noting that the new GHD cord-free tool would have come in handy at the time “because so many times I had to plug my styler in the craziest places just to have my hair done.”
The GHD Unplugged is the brand’s first cordless iron intended for on-the-go hair retouches. Lightweight and portable, it features dual-zone heater technology to ensure a styling temperature of 185 degrees Celsius and is powered by a lithium battery, which provides up to 20 minutes of continuous styling.
Taking two hours to fully recharge through a USB-C cable, the tool comes in black or white color options and retails for 299 euros at select hair salons in addition to the brand’s online store.
Courtesy of GHD
“When I’ve been asked to be the face of this campaign I was so glad because this is the styler that best suits my lifestyle, especially pre-COVID-19,” Ferragni said.
Now that she is returning to traveling for work — she recently was in Madrid and Athens to promote her Chiara Ferragni x Nespresso collaboration — she expects to use the product frequently.
“For me, this is perfect for planes and car rides. In the past, I used to retouch my makeup before landing in a city but I couldn’t do my hair, while now the fact that you don’t need to plug the tool in is like a revolution for me. It’s the same as taking a lipstick out of your purse for a final touch before an appointment,” she said.
This is also the concept of the campaign, in which Ferragni uses the styler while sitting on a suitcase, in a car or charging it via laptop in a hotel. The photographs were taken in Milan in February 2020, at the end of fashion week, recalled the entrepreneur.
“It was a beautiful, productive day, but at the same time, we were all very worried about the COVID-19 situation. It was a week before the lockdown, so we could sense there was something going on but really didn’t understand well the enormity of it….I recalled that day with melancholy for a while as it was the last set I did before being confined for months, which made it even important,” Ferragni said.
Stefano Guindani/Courtesy of GHD
The tie-up with the U.K.-based hairstyling and appliance brand isn’t entirely new for the digital entrepreneur as the two parties have collaborated on social media campaigns for two years, during which Ferragni shared images of GHD tools with her 24.1 million followers on Instagram.
Often, her guardian angel in creating this beauty content is her friend and makeup artist Manuele Mameli, who also selects her hairstyles. The two did a few jobs together before becoming an inseparable duo in 2016. Ferragni said they share the same aesthetic and both take inspiration from red carpet moments, old fashion shows and the work of other makeup artists and hairdressers when conceiving a beauty look for an event.
“I have a folder on my Instagram and on my phone as well with all these images that I love and he has the same, so sometimes we just share them,” said Ferragni, who added that she likes when Mameli experiments with more intricate hair styles she can’t do by herself.
“People tried also to convince me to have a short haircut many times, just for the sake of change, but I never felt like doing it; I’m scared I would grow weary of it,” she added, recalling that she once appeared on the Cannes Film Festival red carpet wearing a short bob wig “which I really loved.”
“I think that when we feel good with ourselves we have a different energy throughout the day, and hair in this sense plays a big part in feeling this way and having that self-confidence,” continued Ferragni. “The world of beauty is super fascinating for me because there are so many tools that can help us to immediately feel better. But for me it’s also important to talk to ourselves and our body in a positive way and focus on the good qualities we have.”
As reported, GHD named Ferragni international brand ambassador last month. It was the first time the company tapped a digital star for such a role, in a move that is intended to mark the brand’s 20th anniversary.
The appointment was the latest in a series of ambassadorships that Ferragni has signed. Beauty-wise, she is a longtime face of Pantene and has fronted campaigns for Lancôme. She additionally developed a range of makeup capsule collections in partnership with the French label, with the first being teased in 2019 during the Beauty Bites masterclass she staged with Mameli.
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