Angelina Jolie the New Face of St. John

NEW YORK - Angelina Jolie is the new face of St. John, the fashion house announced Friday, tapping the Oscar-winning actress and U.N. goodwill ambassador for its spring advertising campaign.

The 30-year-old Jolie replaces model Gisele Bundchen, who has fronted the Irvine, Calif., knitwear brand for two years. The campaign, shot this month, is scheduled to appear in spring magazines.

The company called Jolie "the embodiment of the modern St. John woman" — a stretch for a house best known for dressing politicians' wives and luncheon attendees in conservative knit suits, and a sign of the industry's chase for younger customers.

Jolie has divided her year between film sets and field work. She was in Pakistan last month touring earthquake-relief efforts in her role as a goodwill ambassador for the U.N. refugee agency, and spent part of the summer in Ethiopia with daughter Zahara, whom she adopted in July.

The actress, who won a supporting-actress Oscar for "Girl, Interrupted," has been a tabloid fixture since "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" paired her on screen with Brad Pitt amid the collapse of Pitt's marriage to Jennifer Aniston. She denies any romantic involvement with her co-star.

Her Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation funds conservation and community projects in Cambodia, where she adopted her son Maddox in 2002 and where she was granted citizenship this summer.

St. John, founded in 1962, has used celebrity faces before — among them Kelly Preston — in a bid to freshen a label whose classic suits retail for $1,000 and up.

A company spokeswoman declined to disclose the value of Jolie's contract. Advertising trades put such campaigns in the multimillion-dollar range.