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beauty:
fragrances
 A new campaign for Laetitia Casta
French model Lætitia Casta is
the face of Ralph Lauren’s Notorious fragrance
HAVING DONE
HER DASH WITH L’Oréal Paris, French-born model
Laetitia Casta has been moved within the group to the Ralph Lauren
Fragrances division, and will front its campaign for its new line,
Notorious.
The new campaign has been photographed by Michael
Thompson and the commercial film has been directed by Wong Kar-Wai.
While the news of Casta’s appointment has
been around for months, this is the first official announcement
from the L’Oréal group.
‘Laetitia’s glamour, daring and powerful
femininity make her the perfect face for this seductive fragrance,’
says Guillaume de Lesquen, President, Worldwide, Ralph Lauren Fragrances,
in a press release. ‘She is classically beautiful, but lives
her life in a completely modern way. Laetitia is Notorious.’
Casta was discovered at age 15 in Corsica by
a talent scout, and persuaded her parents to move to Paris so she
could pursue her modelling career. Her natural, youthful looks and
curvy figure have seen her model widely in France—she was a
favourite of Elle and Marie Claire—and is easily
one of the country’s best known in the industry. She is recorded
as measuring 5'6½" (1·69 m) in
height.
In 1993, she signed with Guess Jeans for a successful
advertising campaign, and in 1996, became one of Victoria’s
Secret’s models.
She crossed over into acting in 1999 with Astérix
et Obélix contre Cæsar, though her role was relatively
minor. She gained more critical attention in La bicyclette bleue
in 2000. She has continued to achieve higher goals in her acting
career and will appear on stage in Elle t’attend at
the Théâtre Madeleine in Paris this month.
In 2000, Casta was named as Marianne, the French
face of womanhood—such praise may well earn her the tag of
supermodel in some people’s eyes. She may well qualify:
she is recognized by those outside the fashion world, and her first
name alone does signify who she is. In earning terms, she is well
behind Gisèle Bündchen and Heidi Klum but it is profile that determines whether the super- prefix applies. Until recently she even overshadowed Carla Bruni.
Lucire’s earlier impressions of Casta
were less stellar in her earlier years, as she tended to stick to
the script in interviews and getting across the sponsor’s message.
However, most critics will agree that she has improved greatly in
her acting career and her looks, as the new Ralph Lauren campaign
indicates, have not diminished.
The Notorious campaign breaks this month in
the US. •
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Top: Notorious, the new fragrance from Ralph Lauren Perfumes.
Centre: Casta, more sultry and mature in the Thompson photograph.
Above: Laetitia Casta, photographed earlier for L’Oréal
Paris.
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