“Train de Nuit” is a short film by Chanel N°5, that was released earlier this year. The film, which stars Audrey Tautou and Travis Davenport, is the work of legendary French film director Jean-Pierre Jeunet. It tells the tale of a brief encounter between a man and a women traveling to Istanbul on the Orient Express, who’s lives are brought together with a little help from N°5.

In the lead up to the festive season the film is getting plenty of air time on television channels worldwide. But it’s the digital aspects of the project that have caught our attention.

The film was initially released online at www.chaneln5.com, back in May. The Flash website is beautifully executed and is a very good extension of the overall campaign. As well as showing the films – both the long and short versions – the site provides a fascinating looks at the making of the films including an interview with Jean-Pierre Jeunet and plenty of behind-the-scenes photography.

Interestingly, the campaign extends well beyond the website. Much of the campaign has been promoted via the brands own Facebook group, which currently boasts almost half a million fans. To many, involving consumers in the conversation only takes away from the mystery and potentially endangers a luxury brands positioning. Though a cursory read through some of the comments posted by the 1613 fans who recommended the film, reveals that there is very little being done to harm the Chanel brand in this case.

Aside from Facebook, the campaign is also getting promotion through an email marketing drive, which we picked up on courtesy of Elle Tea. And there’s plenty of Chanel conversation taking place on Twitter also.

We think it’s great to see brands such as Chanel using digital channels to breath extra life into the great campaigns they produce.

Savile Row tailor Gieves & Hawkes has recently launched its first transactional website.

The site – designed by London based digital agency Pod1 – is aesthetically very impressive and at first glance appears to perform well.

The homepage looks slick, much better than any of the other top-end fashion sites that have launched recently. In fact it’s great to see a luxury brand that conveys the same sense of luxury online as they do in the real world.

An abundance of detailed product photography combined with easy-to-use rollover zoom functionality, takes shoppers close to the products. And whilst not faultless, the product navigation is generally speaking user-friendly.

Something that did confuse us was trying to establish which products were for sale. The new site positions itself as an online shop. And there is some great supporting content that makes the shopping experience more engaging. But when it comes to finding out details about the products you are looking at – or trying to buy them – far too often you are unable to. In fact it appears that the only products for sale are shirts and accessories, this despite the fact that the major focus of the site is the A/W collection.

Having done such a good job developing the site, we would expect the tailors at Gieves & Hawkes to do a better job selling the products they’ve become legendary for, not just the ones that are easy to flog online.

Though product range aside, the new site is a welcome addition to luxury fashion online, and we hope will be a lesson to other brands looking to use the web to enhance their businesses.