Actor Simon Baker has signed on as the face of Givenchy's male fragrance after developing the French fashion label's new advertising campaign.

The Devil Wears Prada star dons a sharp navy suit and stands drenched in the pouring rain after handing a damp damsel in distress his umbrella in the upcoming ad for Gentlemen Only, and Baker admits it was a blast seeing his marketing concept come to fruition.

He tells Eonline.com, "I was approached by Givenchy to do it and I had to sort of consider whether or not I was a good fit with Givenchy and they were a good fit with me. I like the idea of the fragrance reintroducing the concept of being gentlemen. I think men have developed enough sort of emotionally and mentally to be able to carry themselves in a way where they put their best foot forward.

"The obvious things (ideas) came to mind.... (like) opening doors, offering a woman an umbrella or a seat on the bus or the subway. The umbrella notion tied into a previous print campaign that they had many years ago in Europe, where there was a woman walking... and a man's... hand sticking out with an umbrella... and you only saw this much (a small portion) of a man. And they said, 'Yeah, we like this too, we'd like to do the flip side of that,' and it sort of went from there.

"Peter Lindbergh directed the commercial and Darius Khondji shot the commercial, so for me it was a pleasure to work with such great craftsmen, such great artists."