Luxury brands love Cannes. Chanel supplied wardrobe highlights for Richard Linklater’s latest festival showing, comedy drama Nouvelle Vague (which it also supported financially). Bottega Veneta chose Cannes as a soft-launch location to debut the designs of its new creative director, Louise Trotter. And Chopard took over a hangar at Cannes Mandelieu airport to showcase its latest high jewellery offering. Year after year, the French film festival continues to grow in influence as a high-stakes platform for luxury brand storytelling.
But which brands managed to cut through on social media? Influencer marketing platform Lefty analysed over 3,000 Instagram influencers with more than 10,000 followers each, calculating the equivalent ad spend — known as earned media value (EMV) — of their Cannes-related content. Overall, the 2025 edition of the festival generated $203 million in EMV on Instagram, more than double the $86.3 million recorded in 2024. Fashion was once again the top performing category, generating $77.2 million in EMV, followed by beauty at $68.9 million and jewellery at $56.8 million.
Gucci emerged as the top performer with an EMV of $12.6 million. A significant contributor was British Indian actress Alia Bhatt, whose three Cannes Film Festival appearances wearing the Italian brand drove $4.7 million. Notably, she wore the first-ever Gucci sari at the closing ceremony. “The knock-on effect of this is gonna be crazy. Like, who’s next?” commented Diet Paratha, a leading creative agency for South Asian culture, on an Instagram post that received over 16,000 likes.
“We’re seeing South Asian talent show up at more global events. For example, Shah Rukh and Diljit Dosanjh at the Met Gala was another big moment,” says writer and creative Simran Randhawa, who identifies an ongoing trickle of Bollywood’s influence into the wider stratosphere. “There’s still so much untapped potential in the luxury space when it comes to South Asian talent. Brands are beginning to recognise the power of this consumer,” she adds, referencing Dior’s pre-fall 2023 show in Mumbai as a notable moment. “But there’s still a long way to go.”
Saint Laurent ranked second, with a total EMV of $7.3 million, thanks to Bella Hadid, who debuted her new blonde do on the red carpet, generating $2.1 million alone. Despite Saint Laurent’s absence in the film space this year (the maison invested in three movies shown at the 2024 festival, a key driver in its number one ranking), her appearance helped secure the Kering-owned house the runner-up slot — demonstrating the enduring power of the star.
When it comes to jewellery brands, Cannes is one of the most significant marketing events of the year. “Cannes, a billionaire hotspot location with the halo effect of Hollywood glamour, creates a heady concoction that proves irresistible to high jewellery houses, year after year,” says Tobias Kormind, managing director of European diamond retailer 77 Diamonds. “The high visibility offered by a red carpet moment at Cannes lends a unique allure to the brand and adds history and provenance to the jewels, which can even reflect in their auction prices down the line.”
Chopard, the festival’s official partner since 1998, led the pack with $22.7 million in EMV, thanks to an elaborate slate of events, including a runway show as well as its annual Trophée Chopard dinner, attended by the likes of Angelina Jolie and Quentin Tarantino. Brand ambassador Hadid once again proved an EMV powerhouse, contributing $2.1 million to the brand’s total.
Fashion’s deeper ties to film
For fashion brands, film offers a uniquely immersive and enduring form of storytelling. Unlike a seasonal campaign or a viral post, a well-crafted film can linger in public consciousness for years to follow. It creates a special world for audiences; offering escapism and allowing for relationship-building with brands on a deeper level.
“Fashion undoubtedly has a problematic relationship with longevity. As an art form, its inherent vice is its seasonality — it shifts quickly, and before you know it, it has moved on to the next thing,” says Sam Bassett, former head of fashion film at Showstudio. By comparison, cinema has a far slower turnover. “Films tend to remain embedded in our cultural lexicon for longer. They define movements, eras and genres. Why? Because they are alchemistic in nature. They fuse multiple disciplines — music, fashion, design — and are rewatched, analysed and remembered for years to come. Far fewer people will revisit that iconic SS94 collection as opposed to a good movie.”
This enduring quality is why fashion’s relationship with film has evolved far beyond red carpet dressing. Today, luxury houses are becoming integral to the filmmaking process — costuming characters, financing productions, collaborating on creative direction and even building product lines around the stories they choose to support.
This year’s Cannes festival made it clear: fashion and film’s intertwinement is more prominent than ever, and there’s much more room for the relationship to grow.
Following Saint Laurent’s success in 2024 — thanks to its support of award-winning Emilia Pérez — Chanel took on a more expansive role at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Alongside its dressing of the Nouvelle Vague cast, Chanel helped wardrobe the stars of Arco, an upcoming animation, and The Chronology of Water, house ambassador Kristen Stewart’s directorial debut. For each, Chanel hosted press interviews in its suite at Le Majestic hotel, backed post-production and supported premieres. The investment paid off: Chanel ranked third, with $5.5 million in EMV, thanks in part to Iranian French actress Golshifteh Farahani, whose appearance at the premiere of Alpha wearing the brand brought in $1.2 million.
Other houses are embracing this deeper integration. Ami Paris, which has long drawn inspiration from cinema, took a leading role at this year’s Critics’ Week as main sponsor and co-producer of Enzo. Meanwhile, Fondazione Prada solidified its film ambitions this year with the launch of the Fondazione Prada Film Fund, an initiative dedicated to supporting auteur cinema at every stage, from development to post-production.
The brand’s founder and creative director Alexandre Mattiussi speaks to Vogue Business ahead of awarding the inaugural Ami Paris Grand Prize at Cannes Critics’ Week on 22 May.
Global talent drives global results
In 2024, the Cannes red carpet highlighted global influencers from Latin America, Southeast Asia and beyond, driving the lion’s share of engagement. This year was no different. Talent from the Asia-Pacific region generated 57.4 per cent of total EMV, while the Middle East contributed 19 per cent. North American influencers, meanwhile, made up just 10.4 per cent.
“You can really see the growing influence from Asia-Pacific markets this year — not just the usual Korean or Chinese stars, but also Indian, Thai, Filipino and even Middle Eastern influencers,” says Lea Mao, head of marketing at Lefty. “Brands are starting to diversify, moving away from putting all their eggs in one basket. There’s clear interest in emerging luxury markets like in India and the Middle East, where we saw Muslim celebrities wearing brands like Bvlgari. This shift is strategic — a broader 360-degree approach to new, high-growth demographics.”
Beauty brands also enjoyed a major boost. EMV generated by beauty brands surged 187 per cent year-on-year, which can be largely attributed to L’Oréal Paris and its flagship Lights on Women’s Worth Award. The event alone brought in $53.6 million in EMV, accounting for 78 per cent of all beauty-related value during the festival. With a roster of around 30 ambassadors spanning continents, L’Oréal leaned into regional power. At the top of its EMV leaderboard was Thai actress Rebecca Patricia Armstrong, whose Cannes appearance for the brand generated a staggering $11.1 million in EMV, representing 44.1 per cent of the brand’s total — the highest of any influencer at the festival. Close behind were Indian actors Alia Bhatt and Nitanshi Goel, each driving $5.5 million and $5.4 million, respectively, for L’Oréal, Gucci and a cluster of Indian luxury brands.
One of the most surprising breakouts at this year’s Cannes Film Festival was Indian couture label Jade by MK, which ranked sixth overall in terms of EM and outperformed global heavyweights such as Balmain, Schiaparelli and Balenciaga. Jade by MK generated an impressive $3.73 million, largely driven by actress Nitanshi Goel, whose viral custom gown contributed $3.27 million of that total, underscoring the affluence of South Asian stars on the global stage.
“Influencers from India, Thailand, Türkiye and Brazil command huge domestic followings and these online communities are not passive. They engage, share, comment and assemble online, often in multiple languages. This creates explosive EMV when their favourite stars appear on global stages,” say Liv Gascoine and Daisy Rose of creator content agency The Content Cloud Network. “These markets have been overlooked in global campaigns for far too long. Now that brands are showing up with local ambassadors and culturally relevant messaging, audiences are responding with true loyalty and engagement, because they’re finally feeling represented and seen in major media. The appetite for influencer marketing in these regions is at the highest we’ve ever seen and will only continue to grow.”
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