Marks & Spencer's leading ladies

High street retailer Marks & Spencer is trying to turn its fortunes around with the help of Britain’s leading ladies including award-winning actress Helen Mirren, fashion editor Grace Coddington and artist Tracey Emin for its latest campaign.

Shot by Annie Leibovitz, the campaign carries the strapline ‘Meet Britain’s leading ladies’ and features “twelve seemingly very different women from diverse backgrounds and professions” that “represent the very best of British” modelling the Autumn/Winter collection.

Reminiscent of Leibovitz famous portrait shots for magazine Vanity Fair, the campaign features the women posing on a boat in front of Tower Bridge, in the British countryside, in an artist’s studio, as well as inside a country house.

The other models in the campaign include supermodel Karen Elson, ballerina Darcey Bussell, singers Ellie Goulding and Laura Mvula, burns survivor and TV presenter Katie Piper, author Monica Ali, Save the Children’s CEO Jasmine Whitbread, Olympic medallist Nicole Adams, and nurse Helen Allen.

"We wanted this campaign to signal a new and confident tone of voice," said Patrick Bousquet-Chavanne, executive director of marketing and business developments at Marks & Spencer. "Annie was the perfect choice to shoot a campaign of this magnitude. Her unmistakable, signature style was exactly what we needed. Annie's photography has become synonymous with defining key moments in the history of brands over the years and, as such, we feel that this campaign is the ideal way to illustrate M&S's move into a new era."

The campaign will run across print, online and on outdoor sites across the UK, while selected shots will also feature in the retailer’s 10 international stores in Paris, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Gurgaon, Dubai, Istanbul, Moscow, Prague, Singapore and Amsterdam.