Elle Fanning’s role as a Miu Miu muse has been well documented. The 20-year-old first appeared in the brand’s Spring 2014 campaign and recently made her catwalk debut, opening and closing the Fall 2018 show. Now, Fanning and Miu Miu have reached another milestone: The actress is also the face of the brand’s new fragrance.
I meet Fanning at the penthouse of the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills. Considering that our meeting has come at the end of a very long press day, she is impressively vibrant and greets me with a hug. “Hi! Welcome!” she says. “I’m Elle.”
She is dressed in a coral Miu Miu shift dress, her willowy 5-foot-9 frame tottering above silver glitter platform sandals that she’s paired (rather ingeniously) with mustard-striped ankle socks. Fanning resembles a very tall fairy; it’s not just her wide eyes, pert nose, and charmingly mischievous grin. It’s her mien—a girlish exuberance (her phone case is emboldened with the word “Rah!” in pink cursive) married with the assuredness of an old soul (she uses anachronistic terms like “cheeky”). To meet Fanning, who followed sister Dakota into acting at the tender age of 2, is to understand how she won the role of a Disney princess (Maleficent) and why designer Miuccia Prada keeps tapping her for projects on behalf of Miu Miu, the quirky-cool little sister of Prada. “It really speaks to my personality—cute and imaginative but still sophisticated,” she says.
This latest campaign sees Fanning as the face of the label’s new perfume, Twist—a sweet, crisp scent with notes of apple blossom and bergamot—which launches January 15 exclusively at Sephora. Fashion photographer team Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott shot the still images while artist collective Canada created the short film. “It takes you backstage of a commercial but in a whole other universe,” Fanning says of the ad-within-an-ad premise, which blends swinging ’60s song-and-dance numbers with a retro space-age aesthetic. “We are on the moon, there are mutants walking around . . . it’s very cheeky.” Looking like a wholesome Barbarella, Fanning meanders through various over-the-top production sets, amusing herself with Miu Miu–centric wordplay—miusic, miustache, miutant. “They know me so well that in writing this, they kept in mind my sense of humor.”
Outside of the Miu Miu universe, Fanning’s acting career is also sailing along at an impressive clip. Last summer, she teamed up with Angelina Jolie again to shoot Maleficent 2, which is due out in 2020. She’s started dabbling in production and has credits on the teen tearjerker All the Bright Places as well as a starring role in a Catherine the Great bio-series The Great. She will also appear in Max Minghella’s anticipated film Teen Spirit, due out this April, in which Fanning plays the underdog contestant on a TV singing competition. A recent trailer, which features the actress singing to Robyn’s “Dancing on My Own,” sent the Internet into a tizzy. “I was looking for a musical, so when this came along, I was like, ‘[Yes!] I get to sing!’ ”
With Fanning verging into triple (quadruple?) threat territory, I have also found myself mesmerized by her expert cat-eye: a flick of liquid black liner over aquamarine shadow. It’s a twist on Anna Karina’s eye makeup from Une Femme Est Une Femme, she explains. “I collect a lot of images,” she says. “I have folders on my phone—inspiration for looks I want to try. They’re labeled different things like ‘eyes’ or ‘hair accessories.’ ” But is there anything that this old soul–meets–real-life Disney princess won’t try? “Bangs,” she says. “My hair is really curly and I’m not going to blow-dry it straight every day.” Bangs aside, she tells me that she’s determined to continue to challenge herself in whatever role she takes on. “You have to dare yourself,” she says. “So you don’t become stuck in your ways.” [Source]
