A 16-year-old who won her modeling contract in a competition has been announced as the new face of Louis Vuitton.

Nyasha Maronhodze entered the modeling world just two years ago after winning the UK Elite Model Look competition in 2009.

The student was scouted in the street in her Northamptonshire hometown by the model agency and  invited down to London to take part in the contest.

The schoolgirl, who arrived for her first casting wearing her school uniform – experienced a meteoric rise through the echelons of the fashion industry, with an impressive debut season that saw her walking for shows including Louise Gray, Clements Ribeiro, Jonathan Saunders during London Fashion Week SS11 as well as Loewe, Emanuel Ungaro, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac and Louis Vuitton in Paris.

And now, the industry newcomer models couture clothes from Louis Vuitton’s latest collection in a slick advertising campaign art directed by the label’s creative head, Marc Jacobs and shot by world-renowned fashion photographer Stephen Meisel.

Youth trumps experience in the latest campaign as the Zimbabwe-born student, along with a group of five young pretenders, replace their more mature counterparts as the new faces for the fashion house.

The rest of the youthful line up includes models Zuzanna Bijoch, 17, Daphne Groeneveld 16, Gertrud Hegelund, 20, Anaïs Pouliot, 19, and Fei Fei Sun, 21 – who together have an average age of 18.

Angelina Jolie: world-famous actress, UN ambassador, and now, the face of Louis Vuitton.

Jolie snagged a huge deal with the French fashion giant—a source tells E! she’ll make “close to $10 million,” which is believed to be the most profitable endorsement deal of her career.

Annie Leibovitz will shoot the print-only campaign, scheduled to launch globally this summer.

It’s illegal to smoke inside buildings in Paris, but Kate Moss is used to playing the bad girl.

The beloved top model returned to the catwalk Wednesday to walk in the Louis Vuitton Fall 2011 show during Paris Fashion Week, strutting her stuff in black hot pants, an intricate black jacket with fur sleeves and little black glovelettes, a lit cigarette in one hand.

Moss wasn’t the only supermodel to take the runway by storm: She was joined by Naomi Campbell and Amber Valetta as well.

It’s hard to believe, but highly photogenic couple Bono and Ali Hewson have managed to avoid starring in any advertising campaigns—until now. The pair were photographed by iconic photographer Annie Leibovitz for Louis Vuitton’s Core Values advertising campaign, which promotes ethical trade in Africa.

Bono and his wife are quite familiar with the territory: In 2005, they launched ethical clothing label Edun to encourage trade with Africa. While both Hewson and Bono wear Edun in the new advertisement, Hewson carries a Louis Vuitton/Edun collaboration bag that features a Monogram charm hand-crafted by Made, a fair-trade accessories company in Kenya. Proceeds from the sale of the collaboration bag will go to TechnoServe in Africa; Ali and Bono have donated their appearance fee as well.

When we think of the face of Louis Vuitton, glamazons like Madonna and Lara Stone spring to mind — not the photographer Annie Leibovitz. But the newest installment of the label’s “core values” campaign features a shot of Leibovitz with her longtime friend Mikhail Baryshnikov.

Leibovitz’s self-portrait is the latest in a series she’s shot for Vuitton, featuring stars outside the fashion firmament. (Previous ads have included Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf, Keith Richards, Mikhail Gorbachev, Sofia and Francis Ford Coppola, and the astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Jim Lovell and Sally Ride.) Exclusive video interview footage of Leibovitz and Baryshnikov will be available at the Louis Vuitton Journeys web site beginning February 11th; in the meantime, here’s a sneak preview.

self portrait of Annie Leibovitz with her longtime friend Mikhail Baryshnikov

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A Paris court on Monday ordered Internet auctioneer eBay to pay $63 million in damages to Louis Vuitton for selling fake luxury goods online, according to reports.

The court also barred eBay from selling four perfume brands — Christian Dior, Kenzo, Givenchy and Guerlain, AFP reported.

eBay, the world’s largest online auctioneer, said it would lodge an appeal and said the decision was not a victory for copyright law.

“This decision is not based on combating counterfeit material. It is based on LVMH’s desire to protect its commercial practices and exclude competition,” a spokeswoman for eBay in Paris told AFP.

“This is being done at the expense of the consumers and sellers to whom eBay is always offering opportunities,” she added.

eBay was ordered to pay $30.40 million to LVMH and $25.7 to its sister company Christian Dior Couture for damage to their brand images and causing moral harm.

LVMH told AFP the decision was a major coup against illegal Internet sales.

“It is a major first, because of the principles that it recognizes and the amount sought,” said Pierre Gode, an aide to LVMH president Bernard Arnault.

The court barred eBay from running ads for the perfume and cosmetic brands or it would face a fine of $79,000 per day.