British it-girl Lily Cole doesn’t want to be boxed in: The successful model launched an eco-friendly clothing line, has two upcoming films and a new television series in the works.

“I quite like breaking down this conception of art as this very kind of insular space,” Cole explained in a recent interview. “I’ve worked with a lot of artists through film as a medium… so I’d love to keep doing more within that medium. We’ll see how that manifests.”

The 23-year-old Vogue cover girl, who recently graduated from Cambridge with a degree in art history, will be interviewing top contemporary artists for a six-part Sky Arts series called “Lily Cole’s Art Matters.”

Cole also stars in Mary Harron’s coming of age drama “The Moth Diaries,” available now on Video on Demand and in theaters Friday. Her clothing line is called The North Circular. And in June she’ll share the big screen with Charlize Theron and Kristen Stewart in the reimagined fairy tale, “Snow White and the Huntsman.”

Cole considers herself lucky to have teamed with directors, like Harron, who supported her studies, environmental activism and busy modeling schedule, but admits she’s not quite sure how she balanced it all.

“I don’t know. I’m kind of surprised I fit it in too,” she mused.

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Mary Harron’s THE MOTH DIARIES (currently available on demand and opening in select theaters this Friday, April 20 from IFC Films) has been described as a vampire movie, but that’s not quite right. It’s just as much a modern Gothic mystery, and at its center is a beautiful enigma named Ernessa, played by Lily Cole, who explored her character in an exclusive Fango interview.

In the film, Ernessa is a newcomer to an elite boarding school for girls who draws classmate Lucy (Sarah Gadon) under her spell—much to the concern of Lucy’s best friend Rebecca (Sarah Bolger). Already grieving her father’s death, Rebecca becomes convinced that Ernessa is a vampire, and responsible for the deaths that begin to occur on campus. And yet, as presented by writer/director Harron (adapting Rachel Klein’s novel), those demises could just be accidents and Rebecca’s suspicions of Ernessa might just be jealousy. MOTH DIARIES is one of a few notable journeys into the unreal for Cole, who previously co-starred in Terry Gilliam’s THE IMAGINATION OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS and later this year appears in the epic screen fairy tale SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN.

FANGORIA: Ernessa is a difficult character to get a handle on, because we see her through Rebecca’s unreliable point of view. How concrete was the character on the page, and in your mind when you were performing her?

LILY COLE: That’s a very good question. I was really drawn to the character because, as you said, she’s unusual and hard to pin down, and I love the ambiguity of the narrative in general. You don’t know how much of it is Rebecca’s projection onto her, or how much to believe of what Rebecca’s accusing her of. I tend toward reality, obviously, in terms of the way I approach a character, because it makes it much more tangible and easier to relate to. And I really like the idea of the vampire as a metaphor for the dynamics in human relationships, where something can be manipulative and dark. We played with how far we could push those dynamics, while still having empathy for Ernessa, in a way, even if it doesn’t come across when you see it.

It was actually very interesting when I first saw the film; I was like, “Oh my God, she’s really creepy.” Because I didn’t set out to play her that way; even if you’re ultimately playing a creepy character, you have to empathize with where they’re coming from, to the point of becoming that person.

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Former model Lily Cole has revealed that being part of the fashion world took its toll on her self-esteem and she only pursued modelling because it “paid her way through university”.

The 23-year-old has discussed the ups and downs of her modelling career, which started when she was 13. While she has since turned her attention to acting, the money in high fashion has been great for supporting her way through an art history degree at Cambridge university.

“That’s probably one of the reasons I continued modelling, because it paid my way through university,” she told Style magazine.

However it was not easy money for Cole. The pressure to look a certain way took a toll on her self-worth.

“For sure, it was challenged,” she said.

“Challenged from the perspective that I was in an industry where beauty was prized above all else, and where there’s no insurance policy. You’re self-employed and you’re young, so of course that means insecurity. But, at the same time, I’m much more confident now than when I was 13 – but it’s partially because I’ve used it to my own ends. I saw through it.”

The star believes her university studies “saved” her from the industry. She used to get caught up in the glamorous side of fashion but is now focused on her acting career, with her new film The Moth Diaries now out in America.

“I’ve had moments where I thought fashion was really important,” she said.

“I mean, I was a kid. I would sometimes get swept into that, but studying saved me in a way. I remember being at Milan Fashion Week, in that negative space, and then opening a book on socialism and reading a book about these big movements that changed millions of people’s lives, and suddenly your perspective goes whoop.”

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Lily Cole is has graced the cover of Vogue, gained a Double First from Cambridge and been out with Jude Law. Now she wants to save the environment from the excesses of the fashion and beauty industry.

“I am concerned that when you buy something you are not knowingly or unknowingly causing someone else’s suffering in the world,” she says.

A risky choice perhaps for a multi-national company, The Body Shop, to choose as their first “brand ambassador” but one that surely the founder Anita Roddick would approve of.

Already Lily is burning with enthusiasm for Fair Trade, having just visited Ghana to see for herself where the ingredients for cocoa butter moisturiser come from. Instead of buying from unscrupulous traders, who often use child labour, the money goes straight to the community.

She shows off her new favourite item of clothing, a cape made from Ghanaian cloth designed by Vivienne Westwood.

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Lily Cole felt “hugely liberated” to complete her degree at Cambridge University.

The model-and-actress – who obtained a double first in History of Art from the British educational institution – admitted she came close not to finishing her studies because she was “so exhausted” after having to juggle academia and acting.

She said: “I feel hugely liberated. I’m super glad that I managed to finish it – and semi-surprised.

“The closest I came to not finishing it was the day before my last exam. I was so exhausted. I’d been drinking a lot of coffee. I would never mind not doing the best if I felt like I gave my best effort.”

The 23-year-old star also explained while she used to “p**s people off” with her ideas of ethical living, she is still in “constant dialogue” with herself about shunning the material world.

Lily added in an interview with Style magazine: “It’s a constant dialogue with myself. With some friends yesterday, we were having a conversation about the material world versus the spiritual, and there are arguments for enjoying beauty and having less things, but things you love.

“It’s always been cooler and safer to just not say anything and not care. I know I used to piss people off. Now I try not to talk too much and just do what I can.”

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Lily Cole
Cambridge University (class of 2011), M.A. in history of art (Double First)

The youngest model to grace the cover of British Vogue and a budding star (she was widely praised in ‘‘The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus’’), Cole graduated in June from Cambridge, with highest honors in art history. ‘‘My degree gave me a very positive perspective on the creative potential of humanity,’’ she says. Cole is an idealist who has donated her time to the charities Christian Aid and the Environmental Justice Foundation. ‘‘The need to protect the environment has emerged as an undeniably important priority for me.’’

ONE-STOP SHOP
The Market Square in the middle of town sells great random things like handmade soaps and juices. I bought a load of old vinyls there — the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Welsh choral music — when I first moved in.
THE TIMES THEY ARE A CHANGIN’
It’s funny, we went from pen and paper to a laptop to a skinnier laptop to an iPad in about three years.
THE REGULAR
There’s a cute vegetarian cafe called Rainbow Café just opposite King’s College. If I wasn’t there, I could often be found at the Eagle Pub.
DROPOUT BOOGIE
The Kills came to play on campus once, which was fun, as I’m friends with Jamie Hince. It was my first year, and he didn’t wager high stakes on me seeing it through three years. I suppose I won that bet.
WORDS OF WISDOM
Work hard, play hard and choose a subject you love! Do your best because it will make you — and your wonderful-slash-irritating, hard-working, fee-paying parents —happy.

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Most jet-setting supermodels barely have time to do their own make up let alone sign up for a full-time university course.

But Lily Cole proved it is possible to juggle a successful modelling career with a degree by picking up double first honours in History of Art from Cambridge University.

In doing so the 23-year-old achieved the highest possible honour in her degree course – an esteemed honour from one of the country’s top universities.

The millionaire model was scouted at the age of 14 and has since modelled for top designers around the globe.

Her assignments have included work for all the leading fashion houses including Chanel, Jean Paul Gaultier, Versace, Alexander McQueen, John Galliano and Louis Vuitton.

In recent times she has switched her focus towards the world of acting appearing in BBC1 sci-fi show Doctor Who and Terry Gilliam’s fantasy movie The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus with the late Heath Ledger.

It was during her revision schedule when Miss Cole filmed scenes for her debut in Doctor Who, in which she appeared as a man-killing monster called Siren.

‘Lily is really pleased with her result and has been smiling ever since she heard the news,’ said a student at the university.

Adding: ‘Not many students get double firsts and she has done exceptionally well as she had a huge work load outside university too.’

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Throughout her time at the university she has thrown herself into college life, cycling to lectures, spending time with her fellow students after class and even modelling in the student newspaper.

Last term she combined her university life and acting career by starring as the lead role in The Seagull play at the ADC Theatre.

The model, who is said to be worth £6million, has said that she plans to concentrate on an acting career after graduating this summer, with forthcoming roles in There Be Dragons and The Moth Diaries.

In a recent interview she stated: ‘Acting is something I’ve done since I was six years old, performing for my mum and my family in the living room, and I do it because my heart’s in it.

‘I’ll always try to follow my heart into things I love, and modelling is not something I’m dreaming of pursuing forever.”

Lily is now said to be planning a holiday to celebrate her finals’ result.

She also scored straight As in her A-levels, gaining top grades in English, philosophy and ethics, and politics at Latymer Upper School in West London.

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Britain’s Next Top Model host Elle Macpherson thinks Lily Cole would be a great judge on the show as she’s a role model for young girls.

The 48-year-old supermodel recently launched the new series of the show at the Soho Hotel in London ahead of its start on TV and was asked what makes a winner.

She said to UK newspaper Daily Express: ‘Personality is important. As well as being beautiful a model needs to be ballsy.’

Macpherson added that Lily Cole would be a great judge on the show.

She said: ‘I’d like to have Lily as a judge. She’s a good role model. She shows girls it’s important to have a back-up plan. Girls should finish their education.’

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Lily Cole: ‘We can buy less and pay more’

The supermodel, student and campaigner for sustainable fashion talks about her career, and how ethical consumers can change the world.

Supermodels famously do not get out of bed for less than $10,000 – and when they do, legend has it, they are invariably late. Nobody would therefore be surprised to learn that the first attempt to interview Lily Cole had to be abandoned altogether, due to excessive tardiness, and the second attempt eventually got under way almost an hour behind schedule. Had Cole been the culprit, the debacle would have been such a cliche as to scarcely merit a mention – but in fact, on both occasions the fault was entirely mine, whereas Cole herself was not just punctual but extraordinarily forgiving, laughing it away with the sort of cheerful generosity you’d expect from a close friend, not a world-class model.

So when at last we did get going, had she turned out to be any of the other things people like to say about supermodels – vacuous, neurotic, superficial – it would have felt spectacularly ungracious to say so. Happily, however, nothing could be further from the truth.

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Only 22, Cole has already been modelling for eight years. But she is also in her third year at Cambridge (studying history of art), is the co-founder of an ethical fashion label, and is making her name as an environmental and humanitarian campaigner. She recently returned from a visit to India with the Environmental Justice Foundation, where she followed the supply chain of a sustainably produced T-shirt, from the hand cultivation of organic cotton right through to the factory built out of recycled materials, making T-shirts whose carbon footprint is 90% smaller than that of a conventionally manufactured equivalent.

The T-shirt will be on sale in Tesco to promote Climate Week, and Cole talks with wide-eyed excitement about its potential to prove that sustainable fashion needn’t be confined to small-scale production. “It was such an amazing and heart-warming and optimistic experience, just to know you could produce an affordable T-shirt and it could be a positive process, employing people and not dumping loads of chemical dyes into the local river,” she enthuses. She got involved with EJF after reading its cotton report, about farmers being disfigured by the use of agricultural sulphates, and: “I was like actually physically crying, sitting on the tube reading it. It was so devastating.”

I never know quite what to make of sustainable or ethical fashion. There’s no doubting the sincerity of its pioneers – and Cole is every inch the passionate proselytiser – but there is something odd about representatives of an industry whose existence depends upon getting us to replace clothes that haven’t worn out, with new ones we don’t need, suddenly going on about sustainability. Isn’t sustainable fashion inherently oxymoronic?

“It is!” she agrees, laughing. “It is oxymoronic, just in terms of the name ‘fashion’ meaning trends. And so it’s risky, biting the hand that feeds me, obviously. But I don’t think it’s particular to the clothing industry. It’s a problem with the manufacture of everything. I mean, the fact that there’s already a second iPad out now is ‘fashion’, in a similar way. I don’t think this is fashion’s fault. It’s a broader issue to do with the capitalism, and an economy which needs us to keep buying, and creating this superfluous kind of waste. It’s not that I don’t believe in creativity and innovation and new ideas, and the creativity that comes with fashion, which I really respect. But one of my biggest concerns is just how cheap we expect everything to be.”

How can it be possible, she asks, for a T-shirt to sell for £1 or £2, when you consider all the people involved in its production, from the cotton growers all the way through to the shipping workers? “And why should we buy 20, and pay them next to nothing, when we could buy one or two and pay everyone along the line fairly?”

Cole’s label, The North Circular, sells high quality knitwear made out of wool from rescue sheep, hand-knitted by people whose photographs appear on the company’s website, so that customers “know where the garment comes from, and know the physical energy that goes into it”. They’re not cheap – a bobble hat goes for £65, a scarf is £110 – but that, she says, is part of the point. “I’m not against people buying clothes; I think clothes are wonderful, and I’m very materialistic myself – but there’s a way of finding a compromise. I just think we can buy less and pay more, to make sure people aren’t being exploited.” She pauses to smile. “Am I making sense?”

I think she probably is, but more striking is the degree to which she is articulating the particular political outlook of her generation, caught between consumerism and climate change, idealism and pragmatism. Her environmental epiphany, she says, came at 16, when she went travelling in Japan and met a mountain worshipper, and there are moments when she sounds positively girlish: “It’s all part of trying to protect this planet that I really, really, really love.” But when I ask how she squares this with her job, which requires her to fly all over the world, she says at once: “I’m a hypocrite. I’m not perfect – and I admit it. And I feel guilty about that. But I try and do what I can. I do fly, and I do enjoy life – and I think enjoying life is really important too. But I think that by having these dialogues, and trying to make conscious choices and become more aware, that’s the only option really.

“And I’m a natural optimist to the bitter, bitter end, so I think we don’t have to be – what’s the word when you say no to everything? Ascetic. That’s one of those words I’ve read but I’ve never actually said out loud, I don’t think,” she laughs. “Or maybe we do have to, but I don’t think people are ready for that right now, and I don’t think having that as a proposal will go anywhere at the moment. That’s why I got so excited about this T-shirt production. It’s not a question of saying no to production – it’s about changing those structures so that they’re not exploitative.”

The problem, of course, is that capitalism is by its very nature exploitative. To Cole’s generation, the possibility of collective resistance has been more or less abandoned, replaced by a hope that individual choice can be an effective substitute. “I really believe that in this capitalist western structure, the biggest blessing is the idea that the consumer is king. Even if we feel disempowered, the choices in how we spend our money give us so much power. Because the people who have the actual power – the big businesses, and politicians too – are ultimately responsive to our voices.”

She became a vegetarian at the age of 10, and used to be infuriated when people would question what difference it made if she ate a burger or not, when the burger was already there and someone was going to eat it. “But actually, my one measly decision not to eat it is important, because it’s like a chorus. You’re only ever responsible for yourself – and anyway, it makes you feel good to make choices you can be proud of, so having the intention behind it is the key. Just having the intention. Then the more people have those intentions, the bigger the chorus gets. And then hopefully eventually people won’t have to make good choices – it will just be a given that when you buy something someone somewhere won’t have been exploited. If we could get to that point it would be amazing.”

I wish I knew whether this was a plausible prognosis or not. Given how much is riding on it, you would certainly have to hope so. But when I ask Cole if she thinks this is what will happen, she smiles and shrugs.

“I cannot honestly begin to answer that question. I’m trying to figure out if I believe in progress right now. I’m on the whole Hegel thing,” she says, laughing. “I really don’t know.”

It is quite easy to forget that Cole is actually an undergraduate. For one thing, she just looks so other-worldly, in that way models do, like a computer-generated ideal of physical beauty – although much less like the porcelain doll she famously resembles in photographs. Apart from a tendency to add a question mark on the end of a statement – like a teenager who’s watched too many Australian soaps? – she has the easy self-possession of a veteran celebrity way beyond her years. Her conversation is studded with references to famous artist friends – “Jake and Dinos” (Chapman), “Damien” (Hirst) and so on – and the tabloids are currently full of speculation that her former romance with Jude Law has been rekindled, after her recent split from the American actor Enrique Murciano. She has already appeared in several films, and when she starred in a recent student production of The Seagull, (a “school play”, as she puts it), her performance was reviewed in the national press, and her agent had to evict a tabloid journalist from the opening night.

For all her efforts to make light of the lifestyle chasm between herself and her contemporaries (“I don’t like to think that way, I don’t think it’s healthy”), she did come close to dropping out in her first year. “I went through lots of philosophical conundrums – like, I don’t know if academia is even very good for you, I want to be creative, I’m just getting in my head too much – you know, I had all those doubts.” But she got firsts in her first- and second-year exams, so I wonder if she feels a pressure to excel in academia, just to prove she isn’t an airhead model.

“I think,” she says, after pausing to consider, “the feminist in me likes the idea, as a woman – and yeah, maybe particularly as a model – of changing people’s stereotypes. But I don’t think that’s what really motivates me. I’m just naturally a perfectionist.”

Cole was born in Devon, but grew up with her mother and sister in London, and was spotted by a model scout in Soho when just 14. “I’m sure the little girl in me was jumping up and down with excitement inside, but I tried to be realistic; I didn’t have many expectations, I didn’t know if I’d ever get a job. If they’d painted my life as it is now then I might really have jumped up and down, cos my life’s been a bit of a fairy tale that way. But at the time I didn’t know what to expect.”

In a way it’s the classic Cinderella story – shy and insecure schoolgirl, bullied for being a redhead, becomes acclaimed global beauty – and she claims to have experienced none of the horror stories associated with her industry, though I suspect there may be a touch of diplomacy going on here. Asked about eating disorders and drug abuse, she says: “You know I’ve had so little experience of that, or certainly no more experience in the industry than I have in life. I saw more of those issues in the school environment.”

What about all the rejection and commodification and pressure to be thin? “Who describes modelling like that?” she asks, uncharacteristically brittle. Well, just about every disenchanted model who’s ever talked about the industry, I laugh. “Um,” she concedes reluctantly, “there are elements of that. You’re at such a vulnerable age, as a teenager. And it is hard. I think models have a lot less power than they did in the 80s, when there were, like, only 10 supermodels who could dictate the rules, whereas now there’s so many, and that changes the power dynamic and makes it a more insecure business. But that said,” she adds hastily, “I’ve had so many positive experiences, and it’s done so much for my worldliness and knowledge and creativity, and I kind of feel bad complaining about it. I think it would just be really ungracious of me to complain about it.”

The only controversy Cole has ever really encountered involved a cover shoot for French Playboy in 2008, which featured her posing naked save for a pair of white socks, her hair in bunches, hugging a teddy bear. “This is a can of worms,” she sighs when I bring it up. “Well, first and foremost French Playboy is different to American Playboy, they’re much more like a fashion magazine. Also, I had a no-nudity clause, so it didn’t seem so risky. So with that in mind, part of me loved the idea of being the really cool grandma one day who’s been on the cover of Playboy. In terms of the imagery, I stupidly – not that I necessarily regret it – didn’t ask what the styling would be before I got there, and didn’t trust my instincts enough to resist that, and so just went with it. You don’t have that much control. I did have reservations about the styling at the time, but I didn’t think about it that much, I didn’t think about the Lolita thing at all and I didn’t expect the kind of reaction that it got. And then the press used another interview in which I’d apparently said that it was art, but I didn’t. I’d said that nudity can be art, I never said this shoot was art. But it allowed for a ridiculous semantic wanking conversation about whether it was art.”

What did she think of the image? “I don’t think it was the best shoot I’ve ever done. But at the same time, it was a playful 70s vibe, and I wasn’t a child when they shot it. And I wasn’t naked.

“I mean, you learn. I probably won’t do that again. But I’m also not going to whiplash myself over it.”

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The official Climate Week (21-27 March) t-shirt has been unveiled featuring an exclusive, limited edition design by the ‘patron saints of print’, Eley Kishimoto, in aid of the Environmental Justice Foundation.

A host of talent has stepped up to front the on-trend geometric print, including EJF Patron Emilia Fox, Lily Cole, KT Tunstall, Jade Parfitt, Gillian Anderson, Eliza Doolittle, James Blunt, Jemma Kidd and many others, making it the fashion world’s t-shirt of choice.

Organic, ethically made, and manufactured by wind and solar power, the low carbon t-shirts will be available for men and women in time for Climate Week for only £10. Available from Tesco in store and online at www.tesco.com/clothing and EJF’s web store.

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