The world's most glamorous twins — born three weeks ago to Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie — made their media debut on Monday with glossy spreads in People and Hello! magazines.

Tiny sleeping beauties Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline were splashed across the covers of the two gossip mags, which reportedly paid millions of dollars for exclusive publication rights.

Jolie (33) told People magazine that family life at the Chateau Miraval in France's southern Provence region, where the couple are with their four older children, was joyful "chaos."

"A cuckoo's nest," Pitt (44) joked.

So far, the tots, dressed all in white for the shoot, look much like other infants of their age.

But their Hollywood heartthrob parents and early debut as magazine cover models promise a starry future.

"Viv is proving to resemble Ange in spirit, attitude and physicality," Pitt told People. "And Knox, a bit of me."

The proud couple, as famous for their toned physiques as their acting skills, admit to the challenges of coping with two hungry twins, on top of four other small children.

Jolie said she was working on "getting better at holding them both for (breast) feeding at the same time".

Pitt said Jolie's cesarean section operation at a French hospital on 12 July was "absolutely heroic".

The twins were not conceived through IVF treatment, Jolie underlined, following media speculation.

Pitt, who starred in the violent 1999 film 'Fight Club' and won plaudits in 2007 as the train-robbing outlaw Jesse James, joked he was coming to sound like his own parents when it came to disciplining his gang.

"Using the phrase: 'Because I said so,' is extremely satisfying," he admitted.

Joining the twins for the photo session were siblings Maddox, seven, Pax, four, Zahara, three, and Shiloh, two.

Maddox, sporting a spiky haircut with a dyed blue streak down the middle, is pictured cradling his new little sister, who merely yawns at all the attention.

Ethiopian-born Zahara embraces both sleeping babies, while an attentive Pitt leans over them all.

Shiloh, the couple's first biological child, is keen to emulate her mother — she is already playing at "mommies", says Jolie. A full-page picture shows Shiloh, who also appears to have been experimenting with nail varnish, holding Viv across her lap.

"Shiloh calls them her babies," Jolie was quoted as saying.

The only bad news from the "Brangelina" clan, perhaps, will be for fans hoping to see more films featuring both superstars.

In 2005 they appeared in the comedy 'Mr and Mrs Smith' as a married hit-man and hit-woman.

Asked if they would now be trying to divide their time, Pitt said: "Yes, we try to never work at the same time, to keep the brood together."

AFP