Pamela Anderson stars as Vivienne Westwood's shock new muse for fashion launch

Vivienne Westwood has never much rated convention but her choice of star to launch her latest collection has turned heads even in the rarely shocked world of fashion.

For the doyenne of punk's spring/summer campaign frontwoman is none other than 41-year-old former Playboy covergirl Pamela Anderson.

Anderson brings her trademark raunchiness to the ad, posing in barely there hot pants and diaphanous knit dress, the look topped off with her platinum locks, arched eyebrows and pale pink lipstick.

Shot in and around Pamela's Malibu trailer last November, the picture also stars Dame Vivienne, 67, alongside her husband and creative partner, Andreas Kronthaler, 42. And a dog.

Pamela Anderson stars in transparent knitwear in the latest ad campaign for Vivienne Westwood, along with the designer'shusband Andreas

But the unlikely collaboration did not come entirely out of the blue.

Pamela Anderson claims to have long been a fan of Westwood's curve-enhancing designs and when the two met at designer's spring/summer Red Label show in London last autumn, they hit it off immediately.

Wearing a shimmering gold lurex Westwood mini dress, Pamela took centre stage in the front row, before catching up with the designer after the show.

A Westwood spokesperson said: "At a meeting backstage after the show, Vivienne thought Pamela looked stunning in her clothes. When thinking of casting her next campaign, she immediately thought of Pamela and called her to ask if she would be interested. Pamela agreed on the spot."

Vivienne Westwood said theirs was more than just a business arrangement - it was a meeting of minds.

"We send each other books," she told the Sunday Times this weekend, spouting a list of titles the two have shared, including Anatole France's The Gods Will Have Blood, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, and a book about Senator Edward Kennedy.

"Pamela is very intelligent, she is somebody I can talk to. I don't need to draw her a map. She understands."

Pamela Anderson, dressed in gold lurex dress by Vivienne Westwood, sat front row with an anonymous companion at the designer's Red Label show in September last year

Part trash, part artist's muse, iconoclastic Pamela Anderson has transmogrified from big-busted cover girl to high brow art muse with aplomb.

Beyond her current collaboration with Westwood, she is inspiration and subject for surrealist pop photographer David Lachapelle, artists Richard Prince and Jeff Koons, and has now made the move into high fashion.

"Yesterday I was considered soft porn, now I am art," she said.

The campaign was shot by renowned photographer Juergen Teller, his fourth season for Vivienne Westwood, in a frenetic shoot that took place over just one day instead of the planned three, after the clothing was held up in US customs.

The trailer in the shoot actually belongs to Pamela, the Great Dane borrowed from a neighbour for the shoot, although the star has her own house too, which is currently being refurbished.

But Vivienne Westwood told the Sunday Times that Pamela loves the trailer so much - decked out with nothing more than a few beanbags, a flatscreen TV and her art collection leaning up against a wall - that she's hoping the house renovations are never finished.

The shots, showing Pamela modelling clothes from the Red, Gold, Anglomania and MAN labels, as well as accessories, are to be made into a coffee table book by Steidl, released this month.