Since Anne Hathaway’s highly publicized breakup, she’s rehabilitated herself to an A-List actress.

Receiving an Oscar nomination as the drug-addict sister in Rachel Getting Married, she strays away from real life and delves passionately into the characters that she portrays.

By Sally Singer Photographed by Mario Testino

IntheRaw

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relationship and that she has since tossed out—i.e., domestic apparel, those sweatpants and T-shirts and his/her sweaters in which you tackle crosswords and struggle for the remote control. “This is harder than I thought,” she suddenly confesses. “I haven’t done this yet. I don’t know how I want to look when I lounge around.”

Meanwhile, her ex is in the process of having his forthcoming look decided for him. The very next day, in fact, he will be sentenced to four and a half years in

prison for conspiracy, wire fraud, and money laundering. He can expect a lot of lounging around in orange jumpsuits or gray scrubs. Hathaway is not interested in rehashing this chapter of her romantic life; she made light of it on Saturday Night Live, and that was all the public catharsis she needed. “I was a 21-year-old kid when I met him,” she says. “It wasn’t a huge, dramatic breakup. We were in the process of winding it down when he was arrested. I don’t talk about this, except when I’m asked. It’s not a part of my life anymore.” She adds, “It’s a complicated situation that has the ability to define me in ways I am not comfortable with.”

Like pretty much anyone who emerges from a long relationship, Hathaway is in the process of redefining who she is. In the past few months (the split occurred last June), the actress has quite self-consciously sought to reimagine almost every aspect of her 26-year-old self. There’s her new, stringier physique, achieved through strength training (“I’m proud of myself when I’m deep in a squat, pulling from my core”), dietary supplements, and kickboxing with David Kirsch, the maestro of celebrity slimness. There’s her rediscovered commitment to vegetarianism—”I don’t eat anything with a face” is her way of putting it—a pre-Raffaelloite choice she ditched because it was “easier for the lifestyle at that time.” There’s her new love of live music and festival-centric bands such as Death Cab for Cutie and TV on the

Radio (“After my breakup happened, I thought, Concerts until the end of the year”). And there’s her new quest for a better understanding of what is valuable: “I realized that the past five years of my life had been spent accumulating things I like but never asked if I love.” Although she’s referring specifically to her wardrobe, Hathaway exemplifies the notion that the material and the spiritual are far from distinct. What we buy and what we wear express otherwise intangible states of mind. “I’m looking for a pared-down truth,” the actress says apropos of her wardrobe, and she’s fully aware that her words have a wider and even greater resonance.

When Hathaway talks, her face talks as well. She has startlingly expressive eyes and an XXL mouth that flitters between the comic and the tragic in a single utterance. Jonathan Demme, who directed Hathaway in Rachel Getting Married, her most compelling dramatic performance, says, “She’s like a human lava lamp. She makes you stay in touch with what’s in her mind by what’s on her face.” Meryl Streep, her costar in The Devil Wears Prada, is “surprised that anyone was surprised by Annie [in Rachel]. To me, the immediacy and the freshness and the special quality of being reactive to all stimuli, blushes to bruises, was apparent in Prada, also in the Princess movies. She is also maybe the most beautiful creature on film right now. That’s not her fault or her doing, but she does seem uncannily unaware of the fact, and you never catch her working

She’s like a human lava lamp. She makes you stay in touch with what’s in her mind by what’s on her face. -Meryl Streep

“”I realized that the past five years of my life had been spent accumulating things I like but never asked if I love.

Topshop in Oxford Circus, London, is a vast, crowded, chaotic nexus of moms, teenagers, working girls, and, above all, stuff. There are piles of handbags and baubles and socks and hair doodads, and everywhere Kate Moss hovers gigantically. Just when you

think you’ve found the aforementioned supermodel’s panther-clawed tunic in the right size, some Camden hipsteress with cherry hair and Siouxsie Sioux eyes is grabbing it by the other sleeve. Into this fast fashion fray, one day last October, steps Anne Hathaway, the movie star.

Speaking of fashion with speed, Hathaway is wearing a nifty, nipped tweed blazer from Et Vous; a vintage Fred Perry tennis sweater; an Elizabeth and James plaid shirt; natural-waisted J Brand jeans; and slip-on Keds with rabbits drawn on the front. This is a girl who could teach even an NW1 punkette a thing or two about Lower East Side layering.

“Look, she’s buying cheap knickers!” somebody says. And, indeed, Hathaway is in the lingerie department, surveying the three-for-£7 panties in polka dots and funny florals—girly things. She’s also interested in camisoles, jumpsuits (she tries on a strapless black corseted romper), and

things that in her mind fall into the “lounge around” category. “No one lounges around cuter than Kate Hudson,” she says. Hudson is her costar and a producer of Bride Wars, which opens this month. (Hudson says, “Annie would show up to work in the indie-mod thing that is her go-to. My go-to is jeans, Rick Owens, a blazer, and lots of bracelets. Hers is red sunglasses, tight black skinny jeans, shirt off the shoulder, cute beanie.”)

Hathaway leaves lingerie for trendier pastures. She tries on a black T-shirt dress adorned with swirling zippers and says, “I want to buy it and give it to Sienna Miller.” Nothing of Kate Moss’s works for her, not the tiny purple floral frock with the bell sleeves (“Can’t do them; will catch fire”) nor the delicate mushroom-and-scarlet Ossie Clark-inspired number (“I think she only designs for blondes”). A beaded cardigan by Emma Cook is ruled out because, at nearly £100, it’s just too much money. But a fair-trade knit cap is a must-get, as are stacks of slouchy cashmere socks, a Lanvin-esque navy tee edged in black ribbon (“Love it. I’m going to live my life in it”), and a gamine stripey minidress in gray cotton jersey. The cashier is a scruffy, multipierced chick who rings up Hathaway’s stack without a glimmer of recognition. Then, all London deadpan, she says, “I know this is going to sound queer, but I love you.”

We’re back to knickers for one last look. It’s a psychologically charged moment. For the truth is that Hathaway recently split up with Raffaello Follieri, her boyfriend of four years, and is trying to replace all the clothes and underpinnings she associates with that

She’s become fashion designers’ “It” darling. Favoring romantic frocks that celebrate her quintessential looks, here are some of her best hits.

In Marc Jacobs at the 2009 MTV Movie Awards

In Valentino at a movie screening

in 2009

In Georgio Armani at the 2009 Oscars

In a custom made Marchesa by Georgina Chapman at the 2008 Oscars

The She

WoreWay

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