Emma Watson at The National Movie Awards
Image Credit: osoblog.tv
There comes a time in every A-list ingénue’s life that she has to make a decision about what to wear on the red carpet. How to look grown up but not middle aged. How to be sexy but not inappropriately so. Boy am I glad I was never a teenage film star. I would’ve just copied Angelina Jolie and had fourteen tattoos and six kids by now. There’s no way to get it right unless you have a) a very good stylist or b) a doting mother who was a model in the 60s. Too many young actresses try and be glamorous for these occasions. Urgh. To be glamorous and young is to have aged before your time, and to have a sense of occasion, to be detached enough from your image to gauge its impact on others takes years of being yourself – not playing a part.
Even so, when your detractors are razor-tongued critics and not your mates in the common room, the pressure’s kind of on. It does help to be the face of Chanel; Karl on speed-dial must be reassuring if the Alexander McQueen empire line goddess dress falls through at the last minute.
Which luckily it didn’t because here it is in its perfectly bejewelled glory. It reminds me of a dripping candle from which the flame of youth burns bright…
The face of Chanel at 18. I don’t think I’d bother with my 20s if I was Emma…
