Kidman is New Face of Chanel No 5

She has played an Irish frontier woman, an all-singing and dancing French escort and Virginia Woolf, and it was announced yesterday that Nicole Kidman is to add a decidedly glamorous role to her CV - to be the face of Chanel No 5.

The Oscar-winning actor, once most famous for being Mrs Tom Cruise (they divorced in 2001), will reunite with fellow Australian Baz Luhrmann, who directed her in Moulin Rouge, to film the adverts this December in Australia. They will be screened and published in autumn 2004.

Chanel No 5, the only thing Marilyn Monroe wore in bed, is the top selling perfume in the world, with estimated retail sales of $100m (£60m).

Although the company remains tight-lipped about figures for Kidman's No 5 contract, the fashion newspaper WWD has estimated that the advert budget will be $5m-$8m.

This is the first time No 5 has used a face more well-known than the product in its advertising campaign, but one of the biggest trends this year is to opt for a celebrity instead of a model.

Samantha Morton and Cate Blanchett are in the current advertising campaigns for Marc Jacobs and Donna Karan respectively, the cover girl for this month's British Vogue is Elizabeth Hurley, and Gwyneth Paltrow grins from the current cover of US Vogue.

Although the benefits of these celebrity endorsements are obvious - publicity for the product, glamour for the celebrity - disadvantages exist, too. Last June, Lisa Armstrong, fashion editor of the Times, declared that Dolce and Gabbana's association with Victoria Beckham "has probably trashed their long-term chances of getting into that hall of elegance in the sky."

US Vogue stylist Grace Coddington bemoaned the trend in the recent edition of Time magazine's Style and Design issue because "an actor often dictates what you're going to get. I find that annoying."

There have been rumours about the alliance between Kidman and Chanel since last summer. They were given fuel when Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld, never one to give a compliment lightly, proclaimed Kidman to be "the best of the best".

Yesterday, Kidman was further gushingly described by the company as representing "a unique standard of elegance".