Bella Maclean has completely disappeared from her window of our Zoom call. When, from a holiday in Philadelphia, she bobs excitedly back into view of her computer’s camera, wearing a Breton-stripe jersey, chunky silver hoop earrings and a powder pink and white Phillies baseball cap, she’s proudly clutching a cornflower-blue mesh Adidas & Wales Bonner SL76 trainer. “I just have to show you these because I love them so much,” the 26-year-old actor enthuses of the viral retro style, her dirty-blonde bob and dark brows calling to mind a ’90s-era Patsy Kensit or Liz Hurley.
“I’m so specific about trainers. I rarely wear anything except Nike Cortezes in every single colour.” I have a strong hunch that Maclean will soon have a queue of high fashion labels desperate to dress her.
After a breakout role as Jem, the straight-talking, horse-riding love interest of Adam in the farewell series of Sex Education , Maclean had critics raving when she made her National Theatre debut as the poverty-stricken Bella Wilfer in London Tide , an adaptation of Dickens’s 19th-century novel Our Mutual Friend , this past April. And now the Guildhall graduate is set to star in what promises to be the most talked-about show of the season: the Disney+ adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s cult ’80s literary romp Rivals . Maclean takes on Taggie O’Hara, the daughter of TV talk show star Declan O’Hara (Aidan Turner), who becomes amorously entangled with bad-boy ex-champion show jumper and Tory MP Rupert Campbell-Black, after her family up sticks from London to the Cotswolds.
“I got really lucky with the costumes,” Maclean enthuses of Taggie’s Rivals wardrobe, which boasts a roster of power shoulder-free utilitarian looks, including high-waisted Levi’s 501s, dungarees she “tried to nick from set” and checked shirts that reflect her own desire for “elevated clothes I can wear everyday”. Unsurprisingly, these are not dissimilar to the effortlessly elegant pieces Maclean gravitated towards for her British Vogue shoot, which tap into fashion’s current obsession with fuss-free but fine-crafted clothing: such as the outdoorsy khaki overshirts and the ’80s-inflected punky studded denim from Dior’s resort ’25 collection , one of which was showcased by women’s creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri in the splendid gardens of Drummond Castle in Scotland, where the technical prowess of local artisans took centre stage; or the loose boyfriend-fit jeans by The Row ’s Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, the undisputed masters of astonishingly refined basics – they and their customers know that downtime denim can have the everlasting appeal of a diamond necklace. Maclean was undoubtedly in her fashion comfort zone.
Growing up in bucolic East Sussex, her days were spent “covered in mud” and called for a wardrobe to match. But until she was 10, she and her family (which includes her older “loud, funny and really self-deprecating” twin sisters) lived in New York. “We used to [come back to the UK] every summer to visit my grandparents and one year I remember we left with a lot more suitcases,” she says, laughing.
Once in the UK, “I became a Brit in a year,” she says. Before the spotlight truly hits this autumn, Maclean is squeezing in another break, to Île de Ré in France, where the only obligations will be “packing food from the market into a picnic and going to the beach”. It sounds like a perfect moment of peace.
This young actor’s life is about to get very busy indeed. Cover look: Studded denim jacket and jeans, Dior. Vest, stylist’s own.
Photographs by Delali Ayivi. Styling by Honey Sweet Elias. Hair by Danielle Igor.
Make-up by Grace Sinnott. Nails by Trish Lomax. Set design by Jade Adeyemi.
Production by Chloé Medley.
