Gracie Abrams And Sofia Coppola On Bows, Zines, And Girlhood
When Gracie Abrams was deep in the grip of high school theatre, her favourite part of the experience was tech week, the gruelling time during which every lighting and sound cue is perfected. 'Every memory that I have of school that matters to me was theatre,' she tells me, especially the notion of 'working on a group project together. It makes sense that I love touring because it’s that same kind of circus.'
If you multiplied tech week by 1 million, you might approach the experience of being the opening act on a mega-tour like Taylor Swift’s just-concluded Eras extravaganza. When we speak, Abrams is about to play the final concerts in Vancouver, and will then be embarking on her own tour dates in Europe and Asia. Eras was 'really magical for a million reasons,' she says. 'To be in the same orbit as Taylor and her entire team, from her dancers to her band to the crew, being in the same vicinity as a group of people who are so committed to making something extraordinary happen every single night of the show, it’s a privilege to see it all go down.'
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Today, we’re here to talk about the latest group project the new Chanel ambassador has taken on: starring in the spring/summer 2025 pre-collection campaign for the house, artistic directed by Sofia Coppola and photographed by Craig McDean. Abrams sports a variety of looks, from a tomboyish baseball jacket-and-Bermuda-shorts combo to ladylike tweeds and pearls.
Abrams and Coppola hadn’t met prior to the campaign, but Abrams is a self-professed 'mega fan' of the director’s. 'It was such a crazy dream of mine to collaborate [with her] in any capacity ever, like a faraway dream to know Sofia in any capacity,' she says. And the two have more than a few things in common, especially the fascination with the signifiers of girlhood. Coppola says that when she and her daughter attended Abrams’s concert at Radio City Music Hall, there were girls sporting the singer’s style signature as far as the eye could see. 'I didn’t know your bow was a thing,' she admits to Abrams. 'I was looking around and the room was full of girls with bows...it felt like a secret society.'
'It’s so funny that it has stuck in the way that it has,' Abrams replies. 'I would wear [bows] onstage, but they weren’t a part of my daily life. To see that symbolism was just this funny thing initially, but now I think it’s sweet to have some token of community.' Abrams even wears a bow in one of the campaign images and is generally a fan of more dressed-up performance attire. 'I have had fun treating the stage as an excuse for me to wear more than jeans and a sweater, which is what my everyday life is,' she says. 'And the more that I’ve gotten to know myself and the stronger that I’ve felt in my body, the more compelled I’ve been to try things.'
Coppola calls it 'my childhood dream' to direct a Chanel campaign, and she was particularly inspired by the house’s 1980s campaigns she remembers from growing up. She was lucky to have French actor and one-time Chanel face Carole Bouquet as a family friend and personal inspiration. 'She was an auntie to me, a [Chanel] No. 5 woman and this beautiful chic Parisian. That was my idea of womanhood,' says Coppola, who remembers keeping a bottle of Chanel perfume on her dresser at age 15. 'I just thought I was so grown-up and sophisticated.' Abrams, too, has a formative memory with the brand: visiting her glamorous grandmother, who had Chanel lipstick on her vanity. 'It felt like this treasure that I got to visit,' she says.
Coppola took behind-the-scenes Polaroids on set (she promises Abrams she’ll pass along a shot of her with a Chanel staffer’s dog). Says Abrams, 'For me to be on that set as just an observer, more than anything else, was such a gift...the more that I’ve lived with all of [Coppola's] work, the more it continues to apply to all my formative feelings and experiences, but then as I grow into being a woman, it all just amplifies.' The admiration is definitely mutual: Coppola notes that 'besides Gracie being a beauty – she was great for the campaign because she’s smart and thoughtful and a writer with integrity and has an elegance that’s rare today. To me, Chanel stands for elegance and culture.'
When we speak, Abrams is also celebrating her single 'That’s So True'—a gleeful kiss-off to an ex-lover—going unbelievably viral. She calls it 'the cherry on top of having made something that was so fun to make. That whole writing process was just a huge laugh, and I think it’s always sweet to see that what connects with people sometimes is what you had the best time making, what you felt the most alive doing. Writing that song with [roommate and collaborator] Audrey Hobart was just a good hang. The fact that it’s made an impact more than others is a great surprise...it’s an honour that people seem to have adopted it into their own lives.' She also got the news of her recent Grammy nomination while water-colouring a birthday card for a friend and FaceTiming her mum. There were, she remembers, 'many gasps of celebration'.
The nod was for her collaboration with Taylor Swift on the song 'us' from Abrams’s second album, The Secret of Us. 'It’s such a crazy, full-circle thing to be nominated for a Grammy with Taylor, who I grew up idolising. Especially all of her moments at the Grammys over the years have been so ingrained and burned in my head,' she says. The two had 'a fun, squealy conversation on the phone' afterwards.
As her public profile has exploded recently, Abrams tells me she has been stringent about not reading comments. (Interjects Coppola, 'That’s wise of you.') 'That’s how I protect my peace, because the interactions I have with strangers on the street are always quite pleasant and respectful, and they are real conversations rather than poison being spewed,' she says. 'I don’t benefit from engaging with the light-seeking missile that is the internet.'
Coppola, following her 2023 film Priscilla, is in what she calls the 'early stages' of a new idea she describes as 'not formed yet,' though like her other films, it will be built around a female character. 'There’s someone that I’m fixated on,' she admits, adding, 'I always love stories where you can relate to the women. I don’t feel like there are a lot of movies [where] I can relate to the women characters at this moment.' She is also looking ahead to the 25th anniversary of The Virgin Suicides, which is finding new adherents daily among Gen Z and Gen Alpha alike. 'I think Kirsten [Dunst] and I will plan to do some screenings or something around it,' she promises. 'I’ve always had a connection to that time in life; it is something that I'm drawn to...so much of my work has been around young women growing up, and the fact that that can still connect with people makes me happy.'
Since, as she says, filmmaking takes place on such a long timeline, Coppola is exploring other shorter-term pursuits, too. She was approached about a hotel design project and is considering it (imagine checking into the Hotel Sofia!). She also has a very analogue idea she’s toying with: publishing a zine. (She used to make them in middle school, she says, using the Xerox machine at her dad’s office.)
I ask Abrams if she’d ever be interested in branching into film, like her director dad, J.J. Abrams, and most of the Coppola family. 'That as a concept excites me very much, though it’s not something that I’m actively seeking out, but I feel just generally open to the universe right now,' she says, especially when it comes to writing scripts. 'I have loved writing dialogue since I was in high school. I did it through my time at Barnard and have kept secret imaginary dialogues going over the years. Right now I’m anxious to get back into the studio because I’m at a time that feels uniquely interesting to me, where every time I’ve gone into the studio in the past couple months, I go in feeling like I will never be able to write a song again. And I leave with something that I’m very surprised by. So I think just chasing whatever that is – for as long as it takes to get to the core of this album – is where my brain is.'
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