For actor Emma Corrin, fashion is another performance.

Photography by Tung Walsh
Styled by Jennifer Eym&egrave;re

When&nbsp;Emma Corrin&nbsp;was asked to walk in&nbsp;Miu Miu&rsquo;s Fall/Winter 2023 show&nbsp;earlier this year, it brought back memories of a chapter of their life most of us are unaware of. In 2017, Corrin walked for the British designer&nbsp;Molly Goddard&nbsp;in a pouffy white dress, silver sequined tights, and a pair of red ballet pumps with bows on them. It was a year before they would become, in the eyes of the public, an actor&mdash;but already they had established an intriguing relationship with the pomp and fancy of wearing clothes that feel both audacious (or, as Corrin puts it, &ldquo;larger than life&rdquo;) and also speak, in some way, to your soul. &ldquo;They always made the clothes look special,&rdquo; Goddard herself remembers. &ldquo;Emma moved so confidently and with real strength.&rdquo;&nbsp;

&ldquo;I felt it was performative,&rdquo; Corrin says now: the odd act of walking a runway with people watching, as if you were assuming some kind of character for those brief seconds spent in front of the audience. Of course, Corrin&rsquo;s life is indebted to that very act of performance. As an actor, they have played a princess, a sleuth, a&nbsp;scammer, and, soon, a comic book villain. Walking a runway in front of hundreds of people didn&rsquo;t feel that different.&nbsp;

&ldquo;I really enjoyed playing with the extremes of stuff, and the absurd, and making these characters.&rdquo;

Of course, when you&rsquo;re asked to do something you haven&rsquo;t in a while, the prep is more pragmatic. Equally, on the surface, it would seem like they weren&rsquo;t playing a character. &ldquo;It was very nerve-wracking because it was like,&nbsp;Emma Corrin is walking for Miu Miu,&rdquo; Corrin&mdash;an ambassador for the brand, in addition to&nbsp;Cartier&mdash;recalls of that day in March. &ldquo;Wearing heels no less, which I don&rsquo;t do often. I asked them if I could practice loads and loads before because I was so worried. You don&rsquo;t want to fuck up because it&rsquo;s such a beautiful collection, and Ms. Prada is amazing. She&rsquo;s the last person you want to disappoint by falling on your face.&rdquo; Corrin turned the corner and walked out towards the audience wearing those heels, a fawn roll-neck sweater, and a pair of intensely bejeweled underwear, carrying a black handbag. Their tattoo of two cherubs, gracing their leg, watched over them. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t fall! I was convinced I would.&rdquo;&nbsp;

You can plot the path between the kind of interest&nbsp;Corrin&nbsp;had in fashion as a child and the relationship they have with it now. Back then, when it came to dressing themself, &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t really care,&rdquo; they say. &ldquo;I was quite a low-key kid. I was outside finding woodlice in my outdoor uniform.&rdquo; Fashion was fun when it was intentional. &ldquo;I had a long phase of only wearing boys&rsquo; clothes, which won&rsquo;t be surprising to anyone now&hellip; but yeah, I loved a costume.&rdquo;

As a teenager, Corrin studied the works of Shakespeare at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts in a gap year after high school, before later reading Education, English, Drama, and the Arts at Cambridge&rsquo;s lauded St John&rsquo;s College. Historical prestige and drama sat alongside each other in Corrin&rsquo;s education; Shakespeare being on the syllabus, perhaps subconsciously, tied a thread between the demureness of the present and the ostentation of the fashion of the past. Now, dressing up feels like it&rsquo;s in Corrin&rsquo;s blood.&nbsp;

@emmalouisecorrin on the cover of L'OFFICIEL Fall 2023.

It&rsquo;s been eked out by Harry Lambert, the London stylist who made his name dressing&nbsp;Harry Styles&nbsp;and collaborating with him on projects such as his lifestyle brand Pleasing. Lambert and Corrin met through mutual friends before their breakout performance as Diana, Princess of Wales.&nbsp;&ldquo;Honestly, Harry Lambert is where it begins and ends,&rdquo; Corrin says now. Until they met, &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t realize that I really enjoyed playing with the extremes of stuff, and the absurd, and making these characters,&rdquo; they say. &ldquo;I met a real comrade in him. We have a similar sense of being like&hellip; &lsquo;Let&rsquo;s try to be bizarre and push the limits of what people expect.&rsquo; It&rsquo;s really fun. I always had an adventurous side, of wanting to see what was possible. Harry has that as well.&rdquo;

&ldquo;I was quite a low-key kid&hellip;I had a long phase of only wearing boys&rsquo; clothes, which won&rsquo;t be surprising to anyone now.&rdquo;

The looks aren&rsquo;t always zany or extreme for the sake of causing conversation. Together, Lambert and Corrin sit down and discuss the upcoming events they need to prepare for: fashion shows,&nbsp;red carpets, magazine shoots. &ldquo;During the shows, we&rsquo;re always on the lookout for designers that are on the up who haven&rsquo;t quite been discovered yet and saying, &lsquo;We could do something really cool with this&rsquo; or, &lsquo;This could be outrageous and really fun.&rsquo; You can be in a random bookshop somewhere, and find a random Playbill, and Harry will find a random graphic in a weird outfit and be like, &lsquo;Let&rsquo;s do this.&rsquo;&rdquo;&nbsp;

Such was the case for the&nbsp;2022 Met Gala&nbsp;theme: Gilded Glamour. Corrin created a custom look&mdash;with the help of Lambert, Miu Miu, and Cartier&mdash;inspired by the &ldquo;King of the Dudes,&rdquo; the 19th-century socialite Evander Berry Wall, who treated dressing like a competitive sport. He was a discovery the two made while scouring for references for the event. While most celebrities wore elegant gowns and predictable suits, Corrin arrived in a towering top hat, an oversized plaid jacket, high-waisted boxer shorts, a waistcoat, and pointed black patent leather boots. They&rsquo;ve found a way to make outlandish fashion feel classy&mdash;never crass.&nbsp;

Still, they can shapeshift: at the Toronto Film Festival, they &ldquo;skipped pants,&rdquo; as&nbsp;Teen Vogue&nbsp;put it, wearing a Miu Miu leotard with billowing black organza sleeves&mdash;a look most would consider ultra-feminine. At the 2022 Olivier Awards, Corrin amped up the camp wearing a Loewe balloon dress taken straight off the runway. Similarly, at the London Film Festival, they wore a headline-grabbing JW Anderson minidress that resembled a goldfish swimming in a plastic bag. &ldquo;You can pinpoint a Harry Lambert&ndash;styled outfit by understanding the wink and theatricality of his style,&rdquo; I say.&nbsp;
&ldquo;The theatricality,&rdquo; Corrin says back to me. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s it.&nbsp;That&rsquo;s&nbsp;the context in which I&rsquo;m interested in fashion.&rdquo;&nbsp;

HAIR&nbsp;Charlotte Dubreuil MAKEUP&nbsp;Gina Kane MANICURE&nbsp;Huberte Cesarion CASTING&nbsp;Lauren Tabach PRODUCER&nbsp;Mariana Suplicy LOCAL&nbsp;PRODUCER&nbsp;Joshua Glasgow LIGHT ASSISTANT&nbsp;Oliver Webb STYLIST ASSISTANT&nbsp;Kenzia Bengel de Vaulx&nbsp;

Emma Corrin is Embracing the Theatricality of Fashion

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