Gorbachev is new face of Louis Vuitton

PARIS, France (AP) -- Move over Scarlett Johansson! Mikhail Gorbachev is the new face of Louis Vuitton.

The former Soviet leader is to appear in an ad campaign for the French luxury label, along with Steffi Graf and her husband, Andre Agassi, and Catherine Deneuve, said a statement Thursday from Vuitton, a division of the LVMH group, Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA.

Shot by photographer Annie Leibovitz, the ads focus on travel -- a "core value" for the company that started in 1854 as a trunk-maker, the statement said.

Gorbachev is featured in a car, a Vuitton bag at his side and the Berlin Wall in the background. Graf and Agassi are shown snuggling in a hotel room bed. A vampy Deneuve sits perched on a Vuitton suitcase in a foggy train station -- or is it a movie set?

Vuitton said it was making donations to former Vice President Al Gore's The Climate Project to fight global warming and Green Cross International, founded by Gorbachev to promote sustained development. The company didn't disclose the amount of the donations.

The campaign -- which is to run alongside more traditional fashion ads that in past seasons have featured Johansson -- will appear in magazines in September, the statement said. E-mail to a friend

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