Diamond status
Before movies and television – before, even, Emily and Paris – Lily Collins was in love with fashion. Her latest role as the new global ambassador for Cartier’s Clash (Un)Limited collection, is a testament to that.
Lily Collins has a new role as the global ambassador for Cartier’s Clash (Un)Limited collection, a testament to her love of fashion.
If you went looking for Lily Collins at about this time last year, you would probably have found her sitting cross-legged on the floor in her home office in Beverly Hills, flush against the floral wallpaper. Delicately stencilled and very pretty, the wallpaper served as a perfect backdrop for what was basically an objectionable amount of Zooming. Collins was hard at work virtually promoting Emily in Paris, her mille-feuille-light Netflix miniseries about a confident Midwestern marketing executive who conquers the city of love one excruciating French stereotype at a time. To date, the show has been watched by more than 58 million people.
The only problem was the temperature: sure, it was Los Angeles, but it was still autumn. It could get cold in her office. So Collins made Zoom’s functional limitations work for her. Up top, she would be clad in a piece of high fashion – YSL, Valentino – but down below she’d be wearing trackpants and cashmere socks. “I did always make sure to put the full look on for the photo,” Collins stresses quickly. “But my fiancé [director Charlie McDowell] would laugh sometimes when he’d come in and look at my set-up. He’d be like: ‘You’re wearing sweatpants and a robe tied around your waist because you’re cold? But on top you’re wearing a strapless dress?” She laughs. “I’m like: ‘Yes, it’s fashion! We’re gonna do it.’”
Clothes are Collins’s first love. Before movies and television, before acting, before writing – she is the author of a bestselling memoir, and used to pen a monthly column for teen magazine Elle Girl – before even McDowell, whom she met when he directed her in the upcoming film Gilded Rage, she loved fashion.
“Oh boy, I have loved fashion ever since I could remember,” Collins sighs. “My mum would take me to flea markets and vintage shops when I was younger, and I remember going through her wardrobe and picking out fun things to wear, and dressing up in costumes when I was a kid.”
Later, as a teenager, Collins used to sketch designs for outfits and create collages from pictures ripped from the pages of magazines. Now, as one of Cartier’s ambassadors and a Hollywood star, Collins has been in the surreal position of having designers, including Karl Lagerfeld sketch looks just for her. She wore custom Chanel to the 2007 Crillon debutante ball when she was 18, and whirled through 54 different Patricia Field-approved outfit changes in Emily in Paris. “I’ve always loved experimenting with clothes,” Collins admits, reflecting back on her youth. “Sometimes
I looked ridiculous, because, of course, I picked my own clothes, but that expression of self and that extension of your personality through your clothes is something that I’ve always loved.”
Collins’s new role as ambassador of Cartier’s Clash [Un]Limited collection is testament to her lifelong passion. Her first exposure to the brand was as a child, rifling through her mother’s jewellery box. “She had really chunky, cool men’s watches,” Collins recalls. Later, on her 18th birthday, her mother gifted her an elegant gold Cartier Panthère watch, a future heirloom for her own children one day. Her Cartier collection now includes earrings, a ring and a Love bracelet that is “so much a part of me – it’s a second skin”, she enthuses. For Collins, this everyday sophistication is the beauty of the 174-year-old brand, which she describes as “so effortlessly chic and timeless, but still pushing boundaries and edgy and fresh”. That includes Cartier’s Clash [Un]Limited collection, a line-up of exclusive limited pieces that are an extension of Clash de Cartier, the jeweller’s directional yet classic offering which Collins describes as both “masculine and feminine”. Of note is the futuristic glove-watch hybrid, 3D-printed from rose gold mesh and studded with diamonds. “The glove is pretty darn special,” Collins gushes. “That deserves a night out!”
Those have been pretty thin on the ground for the past year – although Collins’s hope is that things are finally returning to normal in her beloved worlds of film and fashion. After a year of at-home press junkets, premieres and even awards season, she is ready to ditch the sweatpants and cosy cashmere socks and get back out there again. “I’m such a social person,” she admits. “I love getting dressed up and having fun.” For a big red carpet, such as the Met Ball or the Vanity Fair Oscar Party, Collins likes to experiment, especially when it comes to her accessories and jewellery. But in her day-to-day life, she’s more about layering her “core, delicate pieces” of jewellery, she explains. “For me, every piece of jewellery that I wear has memories attached to it. Jewellery is sentimental … It’s like wearing memories on you.”
And Collins has a good memory; she recalls visiting Australia more than once as a child, even celebrating a New Year’s Eve in Sydney when she was a kid, watching the fireworks light up the Harbour Bridge before travelling to the Blue Mountains’ Jenolan Caves. Her picture-perfect memory extends to fashion: she’s kept stacks and stacks of magazines over the years and can remember details and moments associated with key pieces in her wardrobe. These days, though, her style is more likely to be inspired by her friends than a magazine editorial. Collins namechecks a few of her pals with great taste, including her two future sisters-in-law – “they are always effortlessly chic”, Collins exclaims, “I’m always looking at what they’re wearing. Let me borrow that!” – and her good friend Jordan, who is French but lives in LA. “So it’s even more annoying,” sighs Collins, “because she’s got this California beach-girl vibe, but she’s Parisian and always looks chic no matter what, even if she’s only wearing a tank top and jeans. I’m like, teach me your ways, please.”
Paris is one of Collins’s favourite cities in the world. She’s attended fashion shows there, worked with French brands including not only Cartier but Lancôme, and is currently based, once again, among the wide boulevards and the baguettes filming the second season of Emily in Paris. “I obviously love Paris,” Collins says, but working on the Netflix series also enabled her “to create a whole new relationship with the city.” She had “the most fun” making season one, forging lifelong friendships with the cast and crew. There’s no group WhatsApp chat, Collins admits, but there is a group Emily in Paris email chain, which sounds exhausting, quite frankly. “God knows, on Instagram we’re all DMing each other all the time,” she adds.
The core cast are all returning for season two, including Ashley Park, Camille Razat and Lucas Bravo, Emily’s staggeringly gorgeous chef neighbour Gabriel. Joining them this time around includes the Tony-nominated playwright Jeremy O. Harris and English actor Lucien Laviscount. (It is clearly a prerequisite of appearing in Emily in Paris that you be in possession of a very good name.)
Entire dissertations could be written dissecting the success of Emily in Paris. But, as Collins reflects, the simple fact is that Emily in Paris was released at a time in the world when what we really needed to do was laugh, and nothing made us laugh more than Emily. “That was a gift for me as an actor, to be a part of something that allows people to heal,” explains Collins, “and to be a part of something where I got to have so much fun.” Emily, she adds, “is someone who looks at the bright side of things. She pivots, she’s optimistic, she’s driven, she’s resourceful. She’s all the things that I found myself needing to be more of during quarantine … Emily really taught me about finding yourself in adulthood, in womanhood, and finding your voice and confidence.” Collins is excited to return to this character who taught her so much. “I can’t wait to get back and play her again,” she says, “and find all the new experiences that she’ll be going through. God knows, there’ll be a lot more laughing!”
“Emily really taught me about finding yourself in adulthood, in womanhood, and finding your voice and confidence. I can’t wait to play her again”