New Face: Kate Winslet for St John Autumn Fashion for 2011 She must be the hardest working actress in fashion right now. There are the Vogue covers, the campaigns for Lancôme and Longines – at the latter Winslet is an “ambassador of elegance”. Now Kate Winslet is the face of American luxury knitwear label, St. John, taking over from Angelina Jolie, Gisele Bündchen and Karen Elson.
In backstage images taken on the shoot for the Fall 2011 fashion trend for women advertising campaign Winslet is seen on set in a black jersey draped dress, and in another shot wrapped in camel colored cashmere. The campaign was shot by Craig McDean and the advertisements will appear in September.
Winslet replaces model Karen Elson, who in turn replaced Angelina Jolie in January last year, who had been the face of the brand for five years. Gisele Bündchen and Liya Kabede have each, at one time, also represented the label.
For 20 years, St. John had the founder’s daughter, Kelly Gray, as the star of its commercials. Jolie took over in 2008, but was later deemed too big a star for the company. St. John’s chief executive, Glenn McMahon, told WWD that Jolie “overshadowed the brand”. He said of picking Elson, “We wanted to make a clean break from actresses and steer away from blondes and cleanse the palette. We needed to show a modern point of view of St. John. We have evolved.”
In the meantime Jolie – possibly the most beautiful woman on the planet – has just signed a $10million contract to represent Louis Vuitton, considered to be the marketing deal of a lifetime.
“She is an accomplished, beautiful woman with an extraordinary body of work, and one of the most admired actors of her generation,” says creative director George Sharp who joined the firm in 2008. “She embodies the modern sensibility of St. John, she is contemporary and authentically captures the style of the St. John woman.”
The mutual affection – under contract, of course – was evident when Winslet said: “The St. John collection is effortless and chic, and I think speaks to how real women live and dress today. I am excited to collaborate with George and work with St. John.”
Kate Winslet’s first big movie (or probably her biggest movie) is “Titanic” after that she had received multiple awards and nominations. She is the youngest person to have six Academy Award nominations, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Reader (2008). Winslet has been acclaimed for both dramatic and comedic work in projects ranging from period to contemporary films. She had won awards from the Screen Actors Guild, British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association among others, and has been nominated for an Emmy Award for television acting. Kate Winslet is just getting better with time. Love it!