Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards is set to be the new face of Louis Vuitton, the French maker of luxury handbags and luggage.

Londoners saw the 64-year-old rock-n-roll ‘bad boy’ in his first-ever campaign featured on billboards and British newspapers yesterday in a campaign said to run throughout this month. According to company sources, the ads are designed to promote Vuitton’s heritage in luggage and win back older customers that lost interest as the label became more fashion-oriented.

Louis Vuitton is picking “achievers who changed things” for its ads, said Antoine Arnault, Vuitton’s head of communications. Earlier campaigns for the brand featured former Russian president Mikhail Gorbachev, French star Catherine Deneuve, US actresses Scarlett Johansson and Uma Thurman and tennis champions Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf.

“Keith Richards is timeless and ageless,” said Rita Clifton, head of the U.K. division of brand consultant Interbrand. “He’s lived his life on the edge, but he’s not a sleaze bag. He’s lean and mean and he’s still current.”

“The good thing about Keith is, he’s big just about everywhere,” said Arnault. “He speaks to the 20-year-old who’s into rock ‘n’ roll and the 65-year-olds who went to a Rolling Stones concert when they were 20.”

In one of the ads shot by US photographer Annie Leibovitz, Keith is seen perched on a bed with a custom made Vuitton guitar case and wearing a Vuitton leather jacket. The tag line reads “Some journeys cannot be put into words.”