Image Source: Hindustan Times
Deepika Padukone, an Indian actress, has been named the first Indian brand ambassador by Louis Vuitton, the French luxury label announced Tuesday.
The 36-year-old Bollywood actress’s involvement was revealed as part of a new handbag campaign in which she appears with Emma Stone and Chinese actor Zhou Dongyu in a series of promotional images.
Padukone has previously modeled for Louis Vuitton and has been photographed wearing the brand’s clothes and bags. She was the first Indian actor to appear in a commercial for the brand in 2020, sitting on a mock old book cover alongside Léa Seydoux and Sophie Turner.
In a news release, Louis Vuitton said, “Following a solid creative partnership with the Maison,… the award-winning actress enters an exciting new chapter of her career with Louis Vuitton.”
Padukone has starred in over 30 feature films, including “Padmaavat,” which is one of India’s highest-grossing films of all time. According to the newest edition of Forbes India’s Celebrity 100 list, she earned an estimated $6 million in 2019 after being named to the 9-person jury at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
Padukone has lately appeared in advertisements for Levi’s and Adidas, but her role as an ambassador for Louis Vuitton is her first for a luxury brand.
Padukone was just announced as the new cover star of Vogue India. She wears a selection of Louis Vuitton pieces in the accompanying photo shoot, which will appear in the magazine’s May 2022 issue. In the cover story, Padukone discusses her previous campaign for the brand and her collaboration with its creative director, Nicolas Ghesquière, in the cover story.
“When you’re 18 and have just started earning, you don’t even bother looking into a Louis Vuitton store when you walk past it because you know you’re never going to be able to afford it,” she is quoted as saying. “There are some things that are aspirational and then there are some things that are just completely out of your orbit. My association with Louis Vuitton is the latter.
“I’m a very practical, pragmatic person in reality, but I keep having to pinch myself because I can’t believe this is real,” she added. “And it speaks to the kind of diversity I hope to see in the future.”
Despite the fact that India has not traditionally been a luxury target, the 2019 edition of McKinsey & Company and Business of Fashion’s influential annual report, The State of Fashion, stated that the country’s rapidly expanding middle class made it “too important for international brands to ignore.” The website of Louis Vuitton now lists stores in three of India’s major cities: New Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangalore.
