Baker on Equine Uptick

By Paula Parisi October 13, 2012

Simon Baker’s latest co-star is a horse. The Australian hottie is the new “Ambassador of Elegance” for Swiss watchmaker Longines, a sponsor and one of the official timekeepers of show jumping’s CSI 5* Global Champions tour.

The backdrop for the new campaign, photographed by Nicolas Guérin, was France’s lush Chantilly racecourse, home of the Prix de Diane Longines, which Baker attended in June.  Posing with a Thoroughbred, Baker tactfully exposes his formidable timepiece while exuding the essence of Longines’ slogan: “Elegance is an attitude.”

He wears a Longines Saint-Imier Collection L2.752.5.72.7, 18 carat gold and stainless steel watch with self-winding mechanical movement, date and column-wheel chronograph L688 that retails for $4,525.

Baker can afford to buy a few dozen to dole out as Christmas gifts. The star of the CBS his series “The Mentalist” ushered in his fifth season as television’s highest paid actor, at a reported $435,000 per episode for his role as Patrick Jane, a psychic entertainer turned crime fighter. He has also had roles in films including Margin Call, The Killer Inside Me and The Devil Wears Prada.

Baker apparently has no experience whatsoever with horses, although he certainly looks great standing next to one. And he has confessed to GQ Australia that he himself has spent a great deal of time “jumping through hoops.” In that same interview, he used an equine analogy to describe his feelings about show business: “Often in Hollywood it’s the cart that’s influencing the horse. I’d rather concentrate on being the horse,” he said, musing that for him, it’s the experience he has  making a film that counts, not anticipating what someone else’s reaction to that film will be.

As for his experience working as an Elegance Ambassador, Baker told Luxury Insider magazine that he “felt very at home with the Longines family and the horse.” He and his family live in Malibu. Maybe we’ll see him in the saddle sometime soon.

As the image of Longines, Baker joins British actress Kate Winslet, tennis legends Andre Agassi and Stefanie Graf, Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Asian stars Chi Ling Lin and Aaron Kwok.

Walter von Känel, President of Longines, said the Longines image blends tradition and elegance, and Baker beautifully embodies that branding. The campaign was officially unveiled at the Prix de Diane Longines in Chantilly on June 17, 2012, Longines’ 180th anniversary year.

To see video from the Nicolas Guérin Simon Baker photo shoot, click here.

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