Lara Stone is the New Face of Louis Vuitton

NEW FACE: After two campaigns featuring pop priestess Madonna, Louis Vuitton has gone all New Age in its spring-summer fashion advertising, complete with white doves, ferns and voluptuous model Lara Stone lounging seductively on the grass.

“After two seasons with such a huge star, [artistic director] Marc [Jacobs] decided to take a breather and work with a model — and not just any model. It’s the choice of a new supermodel,” said Antoine Arnault, Vuitton’s communication director, as he unveiled a campaign slated to break in February fashion titles. “She clearly has a Brigitte Bardot look.”

He described the six visuals as fresh, summery, whimsical, young and optimistic — and hopefully coinciding with brighter economic times.

Arnault declined to discuss budgets, but said Vuitton’s media spend would be flat against 2009, when the brand kept spending levels high and won more “share of voice.” New titles for 2010 include the French edition of Grazia. It’s the third Vuitton campaign lensed by Steven Meisel, who constructed an outdoorsy set in a New York studio, planting a series of Vuitton handbags in the moss next to Stone and the birds.

The first spots highlight the Artsy, an unstructured shoulder bag in Monogram canvas, followed by runway styles in sun-bleached denim, some dangling fox-fur charms. The fashion spots will run in tandem with Vuitton’s ongoing “core values” campaign highlighting its travel roots — and featuring the likes of Sean Connery and astronaut Buzz Aldrin — plus a new series trumpeting savoir-faire that quietly debuted this month in a range of magazines and newspapers.

Lensed by Dutch photographer Desiree Dolron and reminiscent of Johannes Vermeer’s enigmatic “Girl With a Pearl Earring,” the Vuitton spots depict workers making leather goods with wax, glue and thread. Next up, Arnault said, is “the young girl and the five folds,” demonstrating a technique used in all Vuitton wallets. (WWD)