Chiara Mastroianni announced as face of Fendi

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French actress Chiara Mastroianni, daughter of Catherine Deneuve and Marcello Mastroianni, has been announced as the face of Italian fashion house Fendi’s new women’s fragrance, which is to be unveiled September 2013–following in the footsteps of her mother – Catherine Deneuve – who was the face of Chanel No.5 in the late Seventies.

With cinema royalty in her blood – as well as having Deneuve for a mother, her father Marcello Mastroianni was an actor in Italian films such as La Dolce Vita – 41-year-old Mastroianni will also be debuting her new film Bastards in 2013, having previewed it at the Cannes Film Festival.

Apart from the obvious (she has of course inherited her mother’s beauty) Fendi say the reason behind their choice of ambassador is simple; she is “the perfect embodiment of the Fendi women.”

They poetically added that their new muse has “a unique beauty with magnetic charm, she has inherited the natural elegance of her mother, Catherine Deneuve, and the seductive smile of her father, Marcello Mastroianni. Heiress of these two screen legends, she is mysterious, talented and independent.”

Fendi has previously opted to use models such as Abbey Lee Kershaw, Karmen Pedaru and Raquel Zimmerman in its fragrance campaigns. The new, as-yet-unnamed scent will launch in September 2013.

The actress made her screen debut in 1992 in André Techiné’s Ma Saison préférée in a screen cast which also included her mother. Both actresses received César nominations for their performances. Since then she has performed in numerous high profile films including Desplechin’s 1994 production Comment je me suis disputé… (ma vie sexuelle) which received three César nominations and Raoul Ruiz’s Le Temps retrouvé in 1998.

In 1999, Manoel de Oliveira cast her in her first leading role in La Lettre (The Letter), a modern adaptation of the novel La Princesse de Clèves (The Princess of Cleves).

At the end of the 2000s, she played leading roles in two films, Un chat un chat (A cat a cat) directed by Sophie Fillières, and then as Léna, one of her most important roles, in Non ma fille tu n’iras pas danser (Making plans for Lena) by Christophe Honoré.

In 2003, she played Carla Bruni the sister of director Valeria Bruni Tedeschi in her autobiographical film Il est plus facile pour un chameau (It’s easier for a camel).

In 2011 she also played alongside her mother in Les Bien-Aimés (The Beloved) working with her favourite director Christophe Honoré.