28 HELLOFASHION.COM
hfmCOVERSTORY
C
lara Paget has a wicked laugh. “Don’t
quote me on this,” she says, before
cackling, “I don’t know why I actually
said that when I’m doing an interview.”
We’ve just finished the cover shoot
and the model, actress and charity
ambassador is still full of energy,
chatting animatedly as she changes
into her own clothes – declaring how much she loves
comfort as she pulls on her rubber-soled Maje boots.
“I really liked the white dress I wore today, I took a
picture of the label,” she says, reaching for her phone.
“Here it is, the brand is Dafna May,” she recalls,
showing the image she has kept for reference.
As we head across the studio to the dining table
Clara mentions how, impressively, the catering and
production on the shoot was pretty much plastic free
(phew). “All except for this,” she smiles, pointing
at some clingfilm that’s sitting under a half-eaten
chocolate cake. “I’m not sure if you saw in the news
this week, but there was a whale that was washed up
on land and it was full of plastic and died a horrible
death. It actually had whole coffee cups inside it.”
Sitting down to chat we notice Clara’s perfectly
symmetrical feline-like face that’s chiselled enough
to grate cheese. She’s also very natural and stresses
she barely wears make-up unless
she’s at an industry event (“I talk
too much to wear red lipstick,
I’d bite if off”). But don’t let
the stream of group shots of
her posing with her close-knit
group of model and rock royalty
friends fool you, there is much
more to Clara than parties.
Currently her work with Project
0, a London-based charity that
aims to restore and protect
the ocean, is her main focus.
“Jimmy Jagger (Mick’s son)
got a load of us involved, we’re all old friends,”
she tells us, eager to talk about the project.
“He’s on ‘the board’ and I’m an ambassador,” she
adds. “We have some incredible people involved
including artists, scientists, and even royalty.
“Princess Eugenie, who had a completely plastic-
free wedding last year, is also an ambassador and Pixie
Geldof works in the Carnaby Street office full-time,”
she explains of the initiative that also counts Poppy
Delevingne, Lily Donaldson, Georgia May Jagger,
Rita Ora and Theodora Richards as ambassadors. The
group aims to have 30 per cent of the ocean under
protection by 2030. The current level is four per cent.
Project 0 stages plastic-free parties and events;
produces limited-edition reusable bottles with designs
by the likes of Ronnie Wood, Kate Moss and Cara
Delevingne (a collaboration with Sky Ocean Rescue);
and Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash once put his name
to a T-shirt they sold. “It’s about making it fun and
not coming across as preachy,” she smiles.
The girl about town, who appeared in Burberry
Prorsum’s AW15 campaign with Ella Richards,
Holliday Grainger, Harry Treadaway and boyfriend
Oscar Tuttiett (more of that later), bagged her first
acting role after begging her agent (director ofworldwide special bookings at Next Management),
Sarah Leon, to sneak her into an audition.
“We heard they were casting forSt Trinian’s
2 The Legend of Fritton’s Goldand I’d loved the
first one,” she recalls. “I went into the audition
ready to play the part of the rude girl, which Zawe
Ashton ended up doing.
“I didn’t go in as Clara at all, I was like, ‘Aw riight’,”
she says in a broad cockney accent. “I was fully in
character from the start, I’d never been to an audition
before and they were really taken aback,” she laughs.
“But then Sarah had a call saying: ‘We really like Clara,
but we’ve already cast the rude girl. Can she do a
posh accent?’ I thought: ‘The funny thing is’,” she
laughs, in her best plummy tones. She was then called
back to the audition and the rest, as they say, is history.
Clara grew up in west London, around Notting
Hill and Portobello Road and, although she’s
now moved to north London, she still regularly
visits her mum, writer Georgeanne Elliot Downes.
Her dad, Charles Paget, is a fine artist. “My dad
is a painter, he’s great. I’ve got lots of his paintings in
my house. He mostly uses oil, but he’s gone through
lots of stages. At the moment he’s doing beautiful
landscapes because he’s moved to the country
from London. He’s my favourite artist for sure.
“My mum is an incredible writer
and wrote a really cool book called
Alternative London, which is an
underground guide book to the
city. It was a collaboration with a
load of friends and I’m still friends
with a lot of the children of her
contemporaries. We all used to go
camping in Haslemere [Surrey].
It was a kind of hippy commune.”
Now Clara lives with Oscar, her
boyfriend of eight years, in Stoke
Newington. “It’s OK, we can talk
about him. We’ve bought a house
together and we’re really excited,” she giggles.
“He’s a dream,” she adds. “He’s doing Movember
at the moment. He looks like a Mexican porn
star,” she laughs. “What he’s doing is growing
a stubbly beard, then when he gets to work he
shaves it off, as that is obviously cheating.”
Clara, who refers to herself as “a London girl
through-and-through”, tells us her heart is still
in Portobello. “My mum’s still there so I can
visit, but then I’ve lived pretty much all over
London. Camden is the first place I lived with
Osky actually, we were there for three years,
but it was like living in a festival. So it was really
fun at first, then I just wanted to get a pint of
milk and I couldn’t walk down the street. It was
literally like wading through human traffic.”
Despite coming from such a creative lineage,
Clara was told at a young age she was destined to
be a social worker. “My mum said that I had some
weird career day when I was little and they said
that was the job I might end up with. I’m not that
nice,” she laughs, before adding, “I am really”.
Clara has recently returned from Italy where she
spent a month shooting her latest film,House Red,
which is about a couple who travel to a remote‘I’VE LIVED ALL
OVER LONDON.
CAMDEN WAS
LIKE LIVING
IN A FESTIVAL.
IT WAS FUN
AT FIRST’f