As the landmark V&A exhibition ‘Gabrielle Chanel. Fashion Manifesto’ opens this month, ELLE takes over the museum with three breakthrough actors. They show us how they wear their favourite classic pieces from the house – and share their own style stories.
Simone Ashley
A teenage passion for vintage Hollywood movies – and their costumes – sparked the actor’s love of design.
Fashion is a ‘completely different world’ to the one Simone Ashley, 28, inhabited growing up between Surrey and California. ‘I was never like, “Oh my gosh, I really want that handbag.” Where and how I grew up, I was always outdoors. So I wore what I could go and play in and whatever my mum put me in,’ she explains.
Ashley is now, of course, a world- famous actor and fashion-month darling – a front-row fixture and regular on best- dressed lists thanks to her flair for glamour. She’s a woman who looks at home in some of the world’s most dazzling labels, from Chanel logo-embossed platform heels to shimmering 16Arlington dresses.
The first fashion show she attended was in Paris for Chanel’s SS22 presentation, which celebrated the golden era of the Nineties catwalk complete with photo-