Audrey Tautou as Coco Chanel

The Coco bio and Tautou casting coup were announced in Cannes, and now Empire has word (via Variety) that Warner Bros has stepped up to produce and finance.

Karl Lagerfeld, art director of the fashion house Chanel founded, will be overseeing the costumes, most of which will be re-creations of Chanel’s own designs and which will therefore totally outclass Sex and the City in the costume department. [phftt, phftt!]

Directed by Anne Fontaine and based on “Chanel and Her World“:

…the glorious life of the incomparable Coco Chanel shines again through hundreds of illustrations and the lively prose of Edmonde Charles-Roux, her official biographer and close friend. Chanel knew and collaborated with the likes of Picasso, Diaghilev, Stravinsky, Cocteau, Jean Renoir, and Visconti-even as she matched their modernist innovations by liberating women from the prison of 19th-century fashion and introducing a whole new concept of elegance.

Anne and Camille Fontaine co-wrote the script, with a consult from Christopher Hampton (Atonement, Dangerous Liaisons). Production begins in Paris on September 15, and is set for a 2009 release.