News that Saint Laurent has launched its own production company may need raised eyebrows in some quarters of the movie industry. But fashion’s growing involvement in film could provide a lifeline for auteur directors, because the streaming revolution and a growing give attention to blockbuster franchises restricts financing for independent movies.

The Kering-owned Saint Laurent is billing itself as the primary luxury label to launch a full-scale subsidiary dedicated to film production. Though firms similar to Prada have funded short movies before, Saint Laurent says it won’t be doing branded content and can eschew obvious product placement.

Its first movies underscore that intent.

The brand new banner is debuting two shorts within the official selection on the Cannes Film Festival, including Pedro Almodóvar’s “Strange Way of Life,” a Western starring Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke, and a documentary about legendary filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard.

“It’s sensible, especially since it’s not hitting us over the top with their product,” said Amy Baker, cofounder and chief executive officer of Winston Baker, which hosts the annual International Film Finance Forum on the Cannes Film Festival.

“They’re absolutely going to make a footprint within the industry if the content is nice, and I’m assuming it’s, because they’ve star quality behind it they usually’re partnering with the fitting production firms or studios. It’s really, really smart.”

Following the Almodóvar project and Godard documentary, Saint Laurent Productions has feature-length projects within the works with Cannes Jury Prize winner David Cronenberg and Oscar winner Paolo Sorrentino. While Saint Laurent creative director Anthony Vaccarello will work with each directors to conceive clothes and accessories, the movies won’t be advertorial.

It’s an unconventional brand extension in an industry that moves almost too quickly for the slow pace of film production.

The 18-month-plus script-to-screen cycle has traditionally made brands shy to speculate, particularly with product placement. In a time when houses routinely drop six collections a 12 months, by the point dopamine dressing hits the massive screen, fashion has already moved on to quiet luxury. The ever-faster fashion cycle doesn’t work with the long gestation times of film production.

“In the event that they are stepping out of it as a product placement situation and making an actual commitment to film, to producing or to funding programming, it’s a sensible move,” said film industry veteran and serial entrepreneur Charles Finch.

“You ultimately are paying money to the celebrities to wear your stuff anyway, so why not go the step further? The interconnectivity of all these artistic threads is so obvious today, so I believe brave and funky of them to do it,” added Finch, who cohosts a star-studded annual pre-Oscars party with Chanel.

As big studios look to license mental property and construct billion-dollar franchises, there’s increasingly less room — and money — for even well-regarded auteurs.

“Even when it’s Pedro Almodóvar or Alfonso Cuarón, who’re incredible directors, they don’t have property that may be a franchise. They simply wish to tell a very good story. In order that they’re going to be trying to other industries where they’re really pushing forward with investing in content,” Winston said.

Video game firms are one recent source of potential funding, in addition to untapped regional production funds from countries similar to Saudi Arabia, she said.

But fashion could fit the bill and money in on the currency of cinema.

“Being associated to cinema gives brands a possibility to ‘gentrify’ and take the high ground, on top of a worldwide language and global testimonials,” said Bernstein analyst Luca Solca. “It’s a really interesting move. It definitely shows commitment to cinema. Perhaps this can be a possibility to seek out alternative creative talent.”

Fashion has long had ties to film, especially in costuming. Think Audrey Hepburn’s Hubert de Givenchy dress in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” or Yves Saint Laurent’s outfits for Catherine Deneuve in “Belle du Jour.”

Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel outfitted Delphine Seyrig in “Last Yr at Marienbad” in 1962; Chanel’s current creative director Virginie Viard staged her spring 2024 runway show against a screening of extracts from the film.

Fashion brands are pushing increasingly into the cultural space — see LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton’s deep reach into the art world, which it co-opts for marketing and branding purposes. Licensing art to be used on a handbag could feel increasingly inauthentic for some brands, but investing in film is working from a distinct and fewer industrial script.

Italian director Luca Guadagnino has made short movies for brands including Valentino, Giorgio Armani and Salvatore Ferragamo. In turn, he has enlisted designers similar to Raf Simons and Jonathan Anderson to design costumes for his movies, and brought on Silvia Venturini Fendi as a producer on his horror film “Suspiria.”

Contemporary brand Agnes b. arrange her Love Stream Agnes b. productions back in 2007, coproducing a handful of movies until 2013.

Meanwhile, Chanel has been quietly ramping up its involvement within the film industry, last 12 months promoting Elsa Heizmann, its longtime global head of VIP relations, to global head of fashion’s relationship with cinema.

Starting with “Clouds of Sils Maria” in 2014, the luxurious house has contributed funding toward several movies, most of them starring brand ambassadors like Kristen Stewart, including “Personal Shopper” and “Spencer.” Nevertheless it has also supported productions like “Larger Than Us,” the climate change documentary produced by Marion Cotillard, one other face of the brand.

At this 12 months’s Cannes Film Festival, Chanel is involved in several projects. It contributed financing, along with costumes and accessories, for the opening night film “Jeanne du Barry,” though star and director Maïwenn hasn’t appeared in a brand campaign for the home in a decade.

It also has longstanding partnerships with events similar to the Deauville American Film Festival in France and the Tribeca Film Festival in Recent York.

As well as, Chanel has financed the preservation of classic movies, as has Gucci, which donated several million dollars to Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation for the restoration of masterpieces of cinema including “La Dolce Vita” and “The Leopard.”

“There’s an actual passion for cinema in quite lots of these brands. Whether it is within the support of a movie, of a story that rings deep bells throughout the culture of the brand and could be supported throughout its life and done gracefully, anything that may support production is basically positive,” Finch said.

Kering, parent company of Saint Laurent, in addition to Gucci and Boucheron, has made inroads within the film world as an official sponsor of the Cannes Film Festival since 2014. The corporate launched its Women in Motion program the next 12 months, increasing the visibility of its conglomerate name with a series of talks and awards.

Beyond promotion, fashion brands could develop into cultural arbiters by acquiring theaters within the troubled exhibition business. The Dior CineramaDome in Los Angeles or the Chanel Curzon in London? It’s the following logical step, based on Finch.

“Movie theaters in parallel might be bought by whoever has a giant checkbook, and why not have firms that fundamentally have taste as their currency? They’d be amazing curators for movie theaters,” he said.

It might be a savvy move for a conglomerate like Kering or LVMH, he argued. “These firms have develop into super brands. When an organization becomes price $500 billion, acquiring movie theaters and funding their very own programming is a natural progression,” he said, noting that brands similar to Adidas and Nike have long invested in sports teams. “So for luxury brands to begin investing in programming, it’s about time.”

A Saint Laurent- or Louis Vuitton-branded cinema and cultural center would have precedent in arenas, which have long sported company names similar to the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami or the Staples Center in L.A., Winston noted. Though the latter went through a sale and rebrand last 12 months, it continues to be colloquially known by its original name.

And with a capability of 20,000, it’s brand-building heaven.

Winston noted this can be happening at a smaller scale with film festivals, similar to the Zurich Film Festival, which is able to grant theater naming rights to sponsors similar to Audi or Credit Suisse for the 11 days of screenings.

Streaming’s disruption of the movie industry has left the patron confused — who hasn’t spent hours scrolling through Netflix just to change over to AppleTV without determining what to look at? If brand curation could give higher structure and draw people back to theaters, Finch said, it might help the viewer.

But he added, “The model is consistently in flux. I believe that when you can protect cinema, in any form, that’s what matters. It’s not the glamour and the noise, it’s the storytelling and the narrative form that should be protected.”