InStyle with Lily Collins

Lily Collins is still able to enjoy relative peace and quiet as she sips mint tea in a West
Hollywood hotel caf. This over-40 business lunch crowd is preoccupied with deals and
salads, but if the place were more populated by young social-media savants, shed be
discreetly snapped and tagged to no end. To her 5.6-million-and-counting Instagram
followers, shes a glamorous but still candid ingnue, supplying a steady stream of coy
selfies highlighting her distinctive ink-black eyebrows.

This March Collinss fans will get an even more intimate look at her life when she publishes
Unfiltered: No Shame, No Regrets, Just Me, a collection of personal essays inspired by the
confessional stories her Instagram community has shared with her. Encouraged by their
bravery, Collins, 27, says she showed a side of myself that was completely raw in
Unfiltered, hence the title. I can feel a bit freer because Im not holding as much in.

In the film world, where shes been making great strides since dbuting as Sandra Bullocks
daughter in The Blind Side seven years ago, Collins is still on the rise. Growing up adjacent
to the spotlight as the daughter of 80s pop icon Phil Collins, she understands that shes one
of many starlets in a race to the top. Shes inching ever closer: Her turn as a 50s pageant
queen in Warren Beattys Rules Dont Apply snagged her a Golden Globe nomination.
Emma Stone (La La Land) took home the award, but Collins won the Instagram battle: The
red-carpet video of her spinning in a pink Zuhair Murad gown garnered more than a million
views in 24 hours.
Despite Collinss very-now brand of social-media fame, her appearance is utterly throwback.
Her petite frame swimming in a cozy black sweater, Collins conjures images of Audrey
Hepburn, whose boyish femininity and sharp wit changed a lot of peoples perspectives
about what it was to be a woman at that time, she says. Collins isnt surprised shes been
tapped for homages to Old Hollywood, including the upcoming Amazon series The Last
Tycoon, based on F. Scott Fitzgeralds 1941 novel.

Ive always been fascinated with old movie stars and the history of the place that I live in,
Collins says, sweetening her tea with her own bottle of Stevia. I really love the romanticism
and the mystery surrounding the period.

Born in England, Collins was raised mostly in Beverly Hills by her mother, Jill Tavelman, a
furniture dealer, after her parents split up when she was 5 (they officially divorced a few
years later). Before she dedicated herself to acting in her early 20s, she modeled a bit and
still serves as an ambassador to Lancme. Modeling, however, wasnt her first love; that
distinction belongs to writing. As a teen she wrote for several outlets, including the Los
Angeles Times, Teen Vogue, and the now-shuttered Elle Girl UK, where she penned a
monthly column, a gig she got by cold-calling the magazine.

For her collection of autobiographical essays, Collins returned to writing once more for its
incredibly therapeutic powers. Collins announced the book on Instagram in October,
thanking her followers for their stories: If youre brave enough to share yours, I need to be
brave enough to share mine. She sold the book proposal to Harper Teen in October 2015
and then landed three acting jobs, including a role as an anorexic young woman in Marti
Noxons autobiographical dark comedy, To the Bone, which required her to lose and gain
weight. Noxons film offered the star a chance to safely explore her past, which helped her
write difficult passages of the book. The producers and director, all women, were adamant I
not put myself in any situation that felt dangerous or teetering. It was the perfect way to step
into this situation and then write about it.

If theres a theme to Collinss life now, its turning former struggles into causes for
celebration. Today she seems only to revel in the pleasures of her image, especially
dressing up. She describes her personal style as classic, ever-changing, and daring, and
everything shes wearingfrom her rose gold watch to her minimalist gray coatis subtly
gorgeous. Collins dresses with her grandmother in mind, a ballerina who didnt have to have
a lot of things, but she knew what she liked and how she wanted to feel.

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