Sex club seven

She was pop's archetypal girlnext-door, a vision of wholesomeness. As a member of S Club 7, the band of choice for Britain's pre-teens, Rachel Stevens enjoyed 10 top five singles and 13 million album sales around the globe until the band split in May.

Now 25-year-old Stevens has unveiled a new image that will transform her appeal. The photo shoot is the first move in a highly calculated campaign to attract a more mature audience.

The photographers chosen to reinvent Stevens are Markus Klinko and Indrani - the team who shot the cover of Beyoncé Knowles's latest album.

Gone is the high street wardrobe of S Club - replaced with Louis Vuitton gloves, a Pringle kilt and other high fashion marques including Agent Provocateur, Gucci and Julien Macdonald, all styled by Arena fashion editor Georgina Hodson.

The stakes riding on Rachel's solo success are high: she has signed a £1 million, four-album deal with Polydor under the wing of Spice Girls svengali Simon Fuller.

In her interview with Arena magazine Stevens admits the shots surprised even her: "I couldn't believe it was me when I saw them, they're amazing.

"I've never seen myself looking like that in pictures ... I knew I would do something like that and it wouldn't look tacky."

However, her management company, Fuller's 19, seem less sure - as they have forbidden newspapers from using another of Arena's photographs of Stevens pictured wearing a modest top matched with some immodest knickers.

The path from girl-next-door to femme fatale is a well trodden one - Charlotte Church and Britney Spears are recent converts.

Stevens's debut solo single, penned by the hugely successful songwriter Cathy Dennis, is not out until September but she promises it will be rather more adult than S Club's back catalogue. She said: "I knew I wanted to do my own stuff when the band finished, to stay in pop but do something a bit funkier, older and more edgy."

She also appears to concede that her background in S Club is hardly cutting-edge, saying: "I don't feel I need to struggle for credibility, it's not about me wanting to be cool."

Her years in the group were not, she admits, without their pressures - especially having to appear constantly cheery. She told of "times where I've been crying and had to smile and get on with it". Stevens also adds that in S Club "you didn't get a chance to air your opinions on issues you were passionate about".

However, there can be no doubt that her background in the band could prove an enormous advantage in becoming a solo star. The group's Monkees-style television programme was broadcast in 95 countries.

Raised in Tottenham, Spurs fan Stevens is engaged to Holby City actor Jeremy Edwards, with whom she attended the recent funeral of his 22-year-old co-star Laura Sadler. "When it's someone so young," says Stevens of Laura's death, "it's just tragic." Of all the original

S Club 7 members, it is Stevens who is predicted to find the greatest solo success.

Apart from her, Jon Lee - currently starring in the West End production of Les Miserables - is the only band member to confirm any post S Club career plans.

More pictures and the full interview with Rachel Stevens appear in the September issue of ARENA, on sale now.