Growing up, Charithra Chandran rarely saw anyone in the media who looked like her.

“It wasn’t my reality,” the 25-year-old actor reflects. “I remember not feeling beautiful growing up. There’s one memory where I wanted to rub the colour off my skin – I would put my hands in water, and try to rub the colour off, because I was being sold this idea that beauty was white, 6ft, super skinny – and I didn’t see anything different.”

A turning point came when Chandran saw Lupita Nyong’o wearing a pale blue Prada dress at the 2014 Oscars. “I just thought: that is a princess, that is such a stunning woman,” she remembers. “That is the closest I’ve come to being like, oh my God, representation is so profound, it is so important.”

Representation has improved in the years since, and earlier this year, Chandran made her debut as Edwina Sharma in Netflix’s diverse period drama, Bridgerton.

She’s also become the new face of Levi’s, saying: “I would have loved to have someone who looked like me fronting a Levi’s campaign [when I was younger], and I am so happy and grateful that my cousins and my nieces and nephews will grow up with it being their aunt. That’s really cool.”

Partnering with Levi’s made sense for Chandran, who’s been thinking more about the environmental impact of her fashion choices. “It’s something you can really invest in, and you can actually have for years and years – by the very fact we know so many vintage Levi’s jeans are still worn and bought, and cut up and made into new products,” she says.

“If I’m being really honest, a couple of years ago sustainability and fashion was not something I thought about, it was not something I prioritised in my life. But as climate change and our information and knowledge about how serious the situation is becomes more prevalent, I’ve tried to make more sustainable choices.”

Sustainability might be a newer consideration, but fashion has always been a part of Chandran’s life. “For me, fashion is like art,” she says, describing her style as a mix of Tracee Ellis Ross and Audrey Hepburn.

“I love colours, and I love vibrant patterns and really playing with fashion – but I also really like structure. In terms of the shapes I gravitate towards, they tend to be very classic, very feminine, but then the actual fabrics and colours tend to be very wild and experimental.”

Chandran says she really found her fashion voice after leaving university (she studied politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford University), when she started working and “didn’t feel any pressure to fit in anywhere – I think that’s when I started expressing myself a bit more”.

This is a stark contrast to the years before. “I don’t believe in ‘dressing for your body shape’, but I think certainly I wore things I didn’t feel comfortable in, and I don’t know if I particularly liked – but because everyone else was wearing them, there was a pressure to,” Chandran admits.

“Definitely when I was younger, when I was a teenager, I really bought into trend cycles – we’re always so desperate to fit in, right? And as I get older, as I actually have the financial means to explore my creativity, I’ve really tried to find my individual style.”

Chandran had an opportunity to show her style to the world during the press tour for the last season of Bridgerton, experimenting with colours, patterns and silhouettes.

“I love the premiere look, which was Carolina Herrera,” she says. “It was one of those things where everything came together – I loved the glam, I loved the print, I felt so confident. I felt so like me. That was a moment where I wanted to represent myself, more than being super experimental. I really wanted to show the world, this is who I am – and I think that look did that.”

It’s certainly very different to the period outfits she wears on the show – but luckily for Chandran, she didn’t find the corsetry of her costumes too uncomfortable.

“Every person has a very different experience with it, because there are so many different types of corsets,” she says. “The team are brilliant and they figure out what’s best for you and for the dresses the character wears. I was lucky enough to have a half corset, so it ended basically where your bra ends. Mine was made by [renowned corsetmaker] Mr Pearl’s apprentices, it was like a second skin for me, so I had no issue with it.”

Chandran is currently filming the third season of Bridgerton, but keeps a tight lip on her involvement and what’s going to happen to her character.

One thing she can tell us about her style moving forward? “I always like to say: keep them guessing.”

Charithra Chandran partners with Levi’s® to celebrate the versatility and can’t-go-wrong nature of creating a capsule wardrobe with Levi’s® jeans and a nice top.