Calling from the back seat of a sprinter after Fendi’s spring/summer 2027 show, Maisie Williams has a particular song from the soundtrack stuck in her head: “Prisencolinensinainciusol”, an old Adriano Celentano track composed entirely of gibberish designed to sound like American English, which had coincidentally featured at Vogue World: Milano the night before. “It’s actually on my playlist in day-to-day life,” Williams says, with a laugh. “I love that song. So when Maria Grazia used it too, it felt really special.” Then, almost downcast, she adds: “But it’s hard to spell.” Having double-checked the spelling a handful of times myself, I wouldn’t argue with that.
Fresh from the front row, the star is dressed in a look from the house’s Cruise 2027 collection: a “fun androgynous suit” paired with ladylike pumps and a studded leather Fendi Baguette. It’s this interplay of masculine and feminine that she keeps coming back to when discussing Maria Grazia Chiuri’s designs. “She’s not afraid to lean into both genders, either gender at the same time and I find that’s how I like to express my femininity,” she says. “I felt good today. I felt very powerful.”
Having entered the spotlight at just 12 as Arya Stark, Williams has seen her approach to dressing shift considerably over the years. Early on, she says, she dressed “very age-appropriately… very cutesy”. Not anymore. “It’s not as powerful to be feeling cutesy when I’m a grown woman,” she says. “It’s been fun now to pull away from that and just elevate my style.” These days, fashion is also a way of shaping the career she wants. “I use fashion as a tool now and not necessarily just as a freedom of expression. In this industry, what you wear can really define how people see you and how people see you can really define the roles that you get cast in. I’m not afraid to acknowledge that there is value in what you wear.”
When it comes to looks she’d rather forget – an occupational hazard for any former child star – Williams stays diplomatic. There were, she admits, some rocky years around 14 or 15, when she went shopping in Paris in stiletto heels, chasing a Carrie Bradshaw fantasy with “really bad posture and jeans that didn’t fit me quite right”. But she won’t disown those early experiments. “I had a vision and it didn’t quite execute, but I wasn’t the first, and I certainly won’t be the last,” she says, before adding, sagely: “It’s good to fall down every now and then and realise it takes work to pull off a good look.” Recently, the actress has been taking cues from the ’90s, looking to her on-screen mother in , Sandra Bullock, for inspiration in slip dresses and denim. Joining Bullock on the moodboard is Winona Ryder, a permanent fixture, Williams says, whether in a corded choker and Converse or tailored trousers and a slouchy suit jacket.
By now, Williams has enough fashion weeks under her belt to offer a few survival tips. “When the party’s not great, the party’s over,” she says. And her Fendi Baguette essentials? “A battery pack, a powder puff, and maybe a boiled sweet. Or sometimes it’s a Babybel.” Her final piece of advice for the four-city circuit is to pace yourself. “Particularly for those 9 am shows,” she adds. “You don’t want to be sitting there with sunglasses on the whole time.”