Ella Hunt looks dewy as hell as she twirls around a custom-made ice rink wearing a cozy black-and-white Fair Isle sweater, just steps away from the Pont des Arts. It’s the peak of summer in Paris, the weather is a steamy 104°F, and the artist is shooting her first fashion campaign, for Banana Republic’s holiday collection. It will be released in a few months, when the fashion makes more sense with the weather.
“Thank god for the air-conditioned shop,” Hunt says as she dives into a nearby café and takes a sip of her water during a break from shooting. Next to her, her male counterpart sheds his cashmere and shearling layers to catch his breath. Hours later, after the sun dips, the two will make their way to the Seine, where Hunt, now dressed in an olive-green sweater dress, will look effortlessly elegant against a white stone balustrade decorated with snowy pine leaves, the river swishing behind her.
“I always forget just how spectacularly beautiful of a city Paris is,” she tells me. “I think maybe because I’ve lived in New York for eight years now, it feels like such an anomaly to turn up in a city and it be so unflinchingly beautiful, so consistent. The buildings and shooting on the Seine with the sunset on that bridge with the vintage car…it was Disney.”
Hunt may have risen to fame thanks to her recent role in Not Suitable for Work, but this success has been a longtime coming for the actress and musician; and seeing her effortlessly pull off every look in the moodboard, it’s evident that moving into fashion is a natural step for her.
As she leaves the set, Hunt is already adding pieces she wore on the shoot to her fall/winter wardrobe: the sweater dress and oversize sweater, cashmere pants, and a denim-on-denim outfit that feels the most like her. “It’s funny. I love fashion, but I don’t shop a lot. I’m a real uniform wearer,” she says. “I think that’s my way of getting through the workday, to wake up and put on basically an iteration of the same thing I wear every day.”
The uniform depends on the season, but it’s either a ruched little cami with brigade pants and field boots, or a boiler suit, which Hunt says, “I love because it’s just one choice.” She admits, “I have to warn friends when we meet up a lot that I’m not wearing the same exact thing every day, I just have multiples.” Her biggest weakness for winter is “a beautiful, strange, big men’s jumper.” Luckily, she has a husband and two brothers to shop for—and steal clothes from.
