Anne Secunda, Wallis' brand director, sees Evangelista as an ideal choice. "She is beautiful and she epitomizes the glamorous look our customers aspire to. The Wallis signature is grown-up, elegant, quirky, flirty. Linda Evangelista carries it off perfectly."

The Wallis Spring/Summer 2002 campaign, shot in New York by fashion favorite Tom Munro and styled by Simon Foxton and Jonathan Kaye, will be displayed in the windows of the store's 247 outlets.

The Evangelista images are part of a focused strategy for the brand, which includes a new design concept for the stores by prestigious design consultancy Din Associates. A new flagship store is slated to open on Oxford Street later this year.

Part of the beleaguered Arcadia Group, Wallis is ripe for a shift in public perception. Although it has a 40 percent market share, its fashion profile is so low as to be almost non-existent.

Founded in 1923, Wallis was firmly on the fashion map by the late 1950s. It built its reputation as a must-visit store by purchasing two couture toiles a season from Chanel and copying the models in identical fabrics. Wallis ensured that the copies would be on the racks within 10 days of the couture shows, and at one tenth of the Chanel couture price.

Chanel herself acknowledged that the worldwide sales of Wallis' copies had so stimulated Chanel's own fragrance and boutique sales that she began offering Wallis 12 garments a season to copy rather than two.

Unfortunately, the store has been in the fashion doldrums recently and not even a recent provocative TV ad campaign entitled "Fashion Kills" could stimulate interest in the store.

But with competitive pricing and a more upbeat collection, that will hopefully bring a new clientele to the store without alienating its current customers, Wallis could be poised for renewed success.