Trading faces: Bradley Cooper unveiled as new Louis Vuitton ambassador

Luke Benedictus

Bradley Cooper has got a new watch. The Hollywood actor has just been unveiled as the face of Louis Vuitton’s Tambour, the brand’s most famous model that celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. The news will perhaps bother some po-faced folk, who’ll no doubt start muttering about Cooper’s previous affiliation as an IWC ambassador and criticise him for getting his head turned by whoever brandishes the biggest pay cheque. But it’s still a good move for Louis Vuitton.

Of course, there’s going to be competition for Cooper’s name among ambitious watch brands. He is, after all, an A-list movie star who, on the back of A Star is Born and the forthcoming Leonard Bernstein biopic, is now burnishing his reputation as a director, too. But Cooper is also a bona fide watch lover.

His IWC role developed after he’d been spotted on regular occasions with a Big Pilot on his wrist. It was refreshing to see a celebrity exhibiting a genuine appreciation of a brand and equally refreshing to see a brand recognise that love and take it to the next level. But IWC wasn’t the  only demonstration of Cooper’s interest in fine watches. He’s also been photographed wearing a Bulgari Octo, a vintage Rolex GMT-Master Rootbeer (given to him by Clint Eastwood) and a Yachtmaster.

Much was made of the distinctive watch in Nightmare Alley that Cooper’s character Stanton wears throughout the film. It’s a 14-karat gold Hamilton Hastings of a style that was introduced in 1928 and perfectly matched the film’s post-Depression mood. But as the movie’s property master, Christopher Geggie told the New York Times, this watch was specifically chosen by Cooper himself. The man has a genuine eye for a watch.

That’s no bad thing for a watch ambassador or indeed for Louis Vuitton. The fashion mega-brand has been slowly but surely establishing itself as a top-tier watchmaker since establishing Le Fabrique Du Temps, their dedicated watch manufacture, in 2014. Since then, several of Louis Vuitton’s watches have earned the Geneva Seal, a rarified standard of Swiss watchmaking reserved for the best of the best (think Cartier and Vacheron Constantin among others).

But they’ve been building towards this acceptance for some time. As mentioned, their distinctive Tambour is now 20 years old and Cooper’s announcement coincides with the release of the Tambour Twenty that we recently reviewed. Having their watches sported conspicuously on the world-famous wrist of Bradley Cooper won’t hurt LV’s growing recognition in this space.