Mariane Pearl Takes CHIME FOR CHANGE'S Women's Bylines Project To Kering Offices In Paris

Mariane Pearl leads storytelling workshop for Women's Bylines at Kering offices in Paris, July 2017

Celebrities can help a cause, and especially in the case of women's issues globally, women like Beyoncé and Salma Hayek Pinault make a difference. Their organization  CHIME FOR CHANGE is a global campaign whose mission is to unite and strengthen the voices speaking out for women and girls all over the world. Many remember CFC's epic fundraising concert in 2013, where stars like Jennifer Lopez and John Legend joined Queen Bey to raise millions of pounds for the cause.

Women Bylines, a CHIME FOR CHANGE project dedicated to bringing marginalized women's voices to the forefront, followed in 2015 and continues today. CHIME FOR CHANGE launched its first Women Bylines event in 2015, traveling to Erbil, Iraq. There esteemed journalist, activist and Bylines project lead Mariane Pearl -- widow of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl who was beheaded by Taliban militants in Pakistan -- conducted a storytelling workshop for Yazidi and Christian refugees who had fled ISIS. This video is a project of the Yazidi workshop. 

In July 2017, Women Bylines traveled to Paris, where Mariane Pearl joined 12 French women writers at the offices of Kering -- parent company of luxury brands including Gucci, Bottega Veneta, Saint Laurent, Alexander McQueen, Balenciaga, Brioni, Christopher Kane, McQ, Stella McCartney, Tomas Maier, Boucheron and more.

Kering CEO François-Henri Pinault is married to Salma Hayek since 2009. In 2008 Pinault created the Kering Foundation to defend and promote women's rights, ignoring advice that an involvement in such complex issues as women's rights was on 'on brand' for Kering's business portfolio. This view is even more common in America, where except for safe, health-related philanthropy like heart disease or breast cancer, luxury brands avoid any political connections that could draw their brands into controversy. Alas, supporting women's rights is heresy for American brands due to the undeniable connection between women's empowerment and birth control. 

We will revisit Mariane Pearl and her Paris workshop shortly. Note, that in the complexity of Anne of Carversville's commitment to telling women's stories from fashion to flogging, Mariane Pearl is a very close friend of Angelina Jolie. It was Jolie's 2007 Esquire reflections about the beheading of Daniel Pearl and her relationship with Mariane Pearl that launched Anne of Carversville in 2007.