Emma Enchanted

Emma Watson has magically transformed from Harry Potter's precocious overachiever to a full-blown glamour girl.

She was just shy of ten years old when she took on the role of Hermione Granger, the bookish, bushy-haired sidekick to the titular hero of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. So feverishly anticipated was that first film—and so beloved were its four sequels that Emma Watson, now nineteen, has been world-famous for more than half her life.

Fashion, in fact, has long been of particular interest to Emma. She's worn enough big-night Chanel to become friendly with Karl Lagerfeld, the line's iconic designer—"It's kind of my lucky brand," she explains, "a fail-safe"—and lately she has been branching out, experimenting with Balenciaga, Burberry (for whom she's a fall face), Miu Miu, Alice Temperley, and a little-known Englishman named William Tempest, whose designs she first spotted at an up-and-comers event called Fashion Fringe. When she's not premiere-hopping, she says, "I live, really, in jeans from Topshop, blazers from Ralph Lauren or Reiss, and ballet flats."

"It's very hard to describe your own style," she admits. "And I'm young, so I'm still experimenting. But I think it's quite British and very much about individuality." Emma says she prefers to pull her own party dresses, but even when she's short on time and must work with a stylist, she's careful to make sure that the resulting outfits don't look overdone. As she explains, "There's nothing interesting about looking perfect—you lose the point. You want what you're wearing to say something about you, about who you are."