Nell Kalonji on dressing Coel for a double press tour and why she’s focused on the actress, not the character
Our March cover star Michaela Coel is in the midst of two press tours happening simultaneously. One is pegged to her role as a fashion designer and costumer for a fictional pop star in Mother Mary, while the other celebrates the release of The Christophers, in which Coel plays an art forger.
But the actress’s ensembles for her whirlwind red carpet appearances haven’t been conceived as extensions of those characters and their on-screen personas, unlike a lot of red carpet dressing these days. Despite the continued flurry of method dressing a la Barbie, Wuthering Heights, Challengers, and more, Coel’s stylist Nell Kalonji is more concerned with dressing Coel, the real-life actress, rather than any character she’s playing.
The two have only worked together for a few months, but they’ve already produced a number of style-minded looks in not as many days.
“It's not a small press tour, but it’s not a Marvel movie,” says Kalonji, so there’s been room to play. Just yesterday, Coel attended the London premiere of Mother Mary in a strapless gown of beaded fringe pulled straight from Loewe’s Fall 2026 runway show—the latest in a succession of stylish, yet personable ensembles.
Earlier this month, Coel was photographed in a white tank top from basics and denim brand Still Here, which she paired with a black beaded skirt with raffia trim and harlequin-like cap-toe pumps from Chanel. And she’s worn Chanel twice more: Once pairing the Chanel x Charvet shirt from Matthieu Blazy’s spring runway debut with Chanel jeans and a leather trench, and again, mixing the new creative director’s colorful plaid bouclé jacket with a T-shirt and jeans of her own.
The following weekend, Coel wore an unconventionally buttoned mini skirt suit from Maximilian Davis’s recent Fall 2026 runway collection for Ferragamo, an asymmetrically draped top and bermuda shorts from Courrèges, and two ensembles from Loewe: a layered knit dress and a tailored coat worn with logo-embroidered leather pants. She’s spanned every level of fashion-favorite brands, ranging from independent designer Colleen Allen—a draped orange velvet top and purple velvet trousers from Fall 2026—to Michael Rider’s Celine—a military style jacket and khaki trousers from spring.
Last night, she capped it off with a silk top, complete with a coordinating shawl adhered at the cuffs, and black trousers from Sara Burton’s most recent collection for Givenchy. Coel and Kalonji haven’t sacrificed wearability for drama, nor vice versa.
And since they’re not dressing a character, but outfitting a real, dynamic person, the looks have a little extra humanity bolstered by an undercurrent of joy—a winning combination that Kalonji says, if anything, is the theme of Coel’s press tour.
“What you see, that feeling that you might have,” the stylist explains, “is her. ”Ahead, we caught Kalonji before another busy day of work to talk anti-method dressing, the state of celebrity styling in 2026, and remembering to find joy in fashion. How long have you two been working together? Not that long, actually.
We've known each other for a while. We did one thing during COVID or just after COVID. And then we lost touch a little bit. I shot her for the cover of British Vogue in 2025, and we reconnected.
She texted me like a week after and said, 'So that was fun. Should we do it again? This is our first big tour, but it's been great ever since. It's essentially a double press tour.
How much are you thinking about a larger narrative in conjunction with her projects? Honestly, I know theme-dressing or character-dressing is really a thing now. I understand the idea behind it, extending the character into reality, but that's really not my approach. I think we are in a very exciting time when it comes to designers.
There’s been a waiting game after the chess game . Now, we’ve had a bit of time to let everyone land in their places. And I'm a designer's fangirl, whether that's like young designers or more established designers, or independent designers. For me, I think about as a character.
She's my main character. And then I think about designers I admire, especially those whose work I see as similar to the client I'm working with. This isn’t a huge around-the-world tour, but for what we had, we really did want to have Colleen Allen, an independent designer, in there. There are a lot of really amazing young designers coming up now, as well.
How would you describe Michaela’s style and how did you convert that into the contemporary runway collections? Is there anything you were really hoping to secure at the beginning that you got? She's super open. She likes to have fun.
I think you can see this also with her roles. She doesn't like to stand still. So it's not like, “Oh, I'm this kind of person,” or “I'm only dressing this certain way. ” She wants to experiment, which leaves room for things for a little trial and error.
And, like all of us, I guess, I love what Matthieu Blazy’s doing at Chanel—all of us crazies piling into the shops. It's interesting because I've always loved Chanel, but that was something that seemed so unattainable. He manages to invite new people into the realm. The price point is not accessible, obviously, but it feels like there's a sort of humanity in it.
And I've also heard from people behind the scenes that everyone loves him. There's a lot of joy in it. And that I wanted that feeling. I'm not going to say we did something that's going to change the world.
The world is very depressing at the moment, but we need to try to find joy somewhere. That's what I feel when I look at Chanel. I love what Jack and Lazaro are doing at Loewe, as well. So maybe that was the narrative, to bring something that's fun and positive and feels exciting.
I'm not over-intellectualizing why I picked something. For me, whether it's editorial or working with a client, it's about empowering the person that's wearing the clothing, whether there's a fictional character in a story or it's a real person who's walking a carpet, I want clothes that empower you. It's like armor. In 2026, you often have to use looks in full, as they appeared on the runway.
How do you keep things interesting while doing that? It's often a full-look policy, yes, but some brands really want you to mix in your own clothing. I say that with quotation marks on “your own clothing”—something that's vintage or whatever. They want you to bring your own character into it.
Not as much for the red carpet, but for more casual press appearances. For example, Chanel always wants a look to feel like it's yours. Obviously, you wouldn’t mix it with Celine, but with something vintage or your own T-shirt or whatever. It makes it feel like your own, and it makes it feel real.
And that's the same way that I approach editorials. When I do an editorial, I think about the character. As in: What's this person doing? How does this person live their life?
What's their mood? I find it really interesting because I kind of fell into working with celebrities through the editorial side. I actually met the majority of the people that I work with on set. It used to be either you’re a celebrity stylist or you're an editorial stylist.
And now that has really changed. A lot of stylists, “editorial stylists,” are working with celebrities now because I think those worlds are really merging. How people consume fashion has really changed. You have amazing stylists like Danielle or Ryan who are really building narratives around celebrities.
It's amazing that you can really have that same editorial approach. We're in the era of binding contracts between celebrities and fashion brands. Is it fun to play with someone who has more flexibility in who they can wear? I mean, we all love a contract.
A lot of my girls are on contract. And obviously, ambassadors are always prioritized. So when you're an ambassador, you can work ahead. Brands are making custom looks for you because you are representative of the house.
Whereas if you're not, then you have the freedom of really playing around, but you might not have the same sort of support when it comes to custom looks. It's all pros and cons. With the girls on the contract, you build really, really strong relationships with the teams, so you can create a narrative with the house. You're almost a consultant, in that sense.
It’s really fun interacting with the teams and the mood boards—just the words that we would throw at each other. But then obviously in this case, you have the freedom of really chasing the best of the crop—or the best of the crop in your mind. For someone who doesn't know how intense the styling process is, how last-minute does it all come together?
I'm a Virgo, so I try to stay on top of a schedule with clients I know that I'm going to work with and what they're filming, when the release might be, etc. But the last couple of things have been quite short notice. When I started working with Erin Doherty, we did so many custom gowns that came together on quite short notice. And then I knew I was working with Michaela, but I didn't realize the scope.
That's the other thing. You don't know how many days, you don't know how many carpets, or if it's going to go to a festival. I had a call this morning with somebody who is now going to Cannes, which is in a month, so that shook me a little bit. It can all be really last-minute.
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