Marisa Abela Masters Quiet Confidence In Brunello Cucinelli
The Industry star talks character dressing as she showcases the Italian brand’s ultra-luxe winter capsule, exclusively available at NET-A-PORTER and MR PORTER
For actor Marisa Abela, getting dressed is all part of getting into character. Yes, sure, as in the characters she plays on screen – be that Industry’s Yasmin Kara-Hanani or Amy Winehouse in Back to Black – but also in terms of real life. Clothes, she understands, say something about who we are and how we live, and so it’s important, before she embarks on a project, to decide how a person would dress themselves. “At different stages [in life], you get to tell the world who you are via what it is you wear,” she says.
Who Abela is, at least according to her own closet, is someone both self-assured and evolving. “I think the most important thing is confidence, and some days that means your clothes are like your armor, and some days that means that your clothes are like your second skin – it depends how you’re feeling.”
“I love that the materials are really high quality. It feels very luxurious when you’re wearing it
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It’s the day of NET-A-PORTER and MR PORTER’s Brunello Cucinelli shoot on an East London rooftop, and Abela has just landed from LA, where she attended the Academy Museum Gala. “It’s really interesting to play a person who has not just a 9-to-5 job, but sort of a 24-hour job,” she says of her Industry character Yasmin – but she’s not far off that non-stop schedule herself (straight after the shoot, Abela is off to get ready for an event).
It’s no wonder she and her well-dressed character both share an appreciation for meticulously executed fashion that can effortlessly keep pace with a full-to-the-brim agenda (“You had me at NET-A-PORTER,” quips Yasmin in one memorable Industry scene). It’s that kind of unmistakable yet understated, elegant and relaxed style that the Italian fashion house Brunello Cucinelli excels at. The brand’s exclusive capsule, which Abela and Industry co-star Harry Lawtey wear here, comes in a sophisticated, muted palette, enlivened with red, and takes its cue from modern city life; its relaxed refinement designed to translate seamlessly from on- to off-duty, to look both cool on the streets and feel cozy at home.
Renowned as the ‘king of cashmere’, Brunello Cucinelli’s uncompromising quality is exhibited across ultra-luxe materials, from sumptuous shearlings to soft corduroy (cashmere, meanwhile, is not limited to sweaters but found on swishy midi skirts and robust padded jackets). It is the collection’s buttery suedes that Abela is particularly taken with, including a chic, pared-back handbag and shirt jacket. “I think [the brand’s] suede is the best there is. I love that the materials are really high quality,” she says. “It feels very luxurious when you’re wearing it.”
Something else that Abela considers a luxury? “Having people just watch what it is that you do, especially when you’re proud of the work – which I am,” she says, talking about Industry, the white-hot show that has just aired its third season to enormous acclaim and countless think-pieces. “It’s a difficult landscape nowadays with [television]. You never know what’s going to hit and what’s going to miss.” Abela inhabits the role of the troubled-yet-captivating publishing heiress and banker Yasmin with such nuance and intimacy, that it bears saying: they are not the same person.
“The amazing thing about multi-series television is that the character goes on an evolutionary journey in the way you do as a human being
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Abela landed the role while still in her final year at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Did she know when she got the part that it would change everything? “It is impossible to guess, but I knew that the scripts were really, really good. And what I knew was that I was going to be able to do work that felt authentic, exciting, genuine and that would exhibit me as an actor in a way that I was really excited about,” she says. Starting out on-set and growing alongside her co-stars has made for a tight-knit cast. “Myha’la [who plays Harper Stern], Harry [Lawtey] and I especially are incredibly close. We started our careers at the same time; essentially, Industry was the beginning of all of this for all of us. So that creates a kind of intimacy and type of friendship that you don’t get elsewhere in the business.”
She feels privileged to let Yasmin breathe and grow. “It’s incredible to have the time to transform as a character; not as an actor, as a character […] The amazing thing about multi-series television is that the character goes on an evolutionary journey in the way you do as a human being.” The most challenging part of playing her? “Towing that line between Yasmin still having the same core of who she is as a person but allowing her new experiences to transform her in a way that doesn’t turn her into someone else entirely.”
Up next for Abela is Steven Soderbergh’s spy-thriller Black Bag, alongside Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender. Inhabiting multifaceted roles and working with such industry heavyweights no doubt calls for a lot of confidence and self-belief. “You have to say, ‘I am here, I can do this, I believe in myself.’ With kindness and gentleness and generosity, not arrogance,” she says. “But it’s okay to be proud of yourself – especially as women.”
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