Emma Watson

Emma Charlotte Duerre Watson was born on 15 April 1990 in Paris, to English lawyers Chris Watson and Jacqueline Luesby. Watson lived in Maisons-Laffitte near Paris until age five. Her parents divorced when she was five, and Watson moved to England to live with her mother in Oxfordshire while spending weekends at her father's house in London. Watson has said she speaks some French, though "not as well" as she used to. After moving to Oxford with her mother and brother, she attended the Dragon School, remaining there until 2003. From age six, she wanted to become an actress, and trained at the Oxford branch of Stagecoach Theatre Arts, a part-time theatre school where she studied singing, dancing, and acting.

By age ten, Watson had performed in Stagecoach productions and school plays including Arthur: The Young Years and The Happy Prince, but she had never acted professionally prior to the Harry Potter series. After the Dragon School, Watson moved on to Headington School, Oxford. While on film sets, she and her castmates were tutored for up to five hours a day. In June 2006, she took GCSE school examinations in ten subjects, achieving eight A* and two A grades. In May 2007, she took AS levels in English, Geography, Art, and History of Art. The following year, she dropped History of Art to pursue the three A levels, receiving an A grade in each subject.

Watson took a gap year after finishing secondary school, to film Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Parts 1 & 2 beginning in February 2009, but asserted that she intended to continue her studies and later confirmed she had chosen Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. In March 2011, after 18 months at the university, Watson announced she was deferring her course for "a semester or two", though she attended Worcester College, Oxford during the 2011–12 academic year as part of the Visiting Student Programme. In a 2014 interview on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Watson said just before graduation that it took five years to finish her degree instead of four because, owing to her acting work, she "ended up taking two full semesters off". On 25 May 2014, she graduated from Brown University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature. In 2023, she began a course of Master of Studies in creative writing at the University of Oxford, where she matriculated at Lady Margaret Hall. In 2005, Watson began her modelling career with a photo shoot for Teen Vogue, which made her the youngest person to cover the magazine. Three years later, the British press reported that Watson was to replace Keira Knightley as the face of Chanel, but this was denied by both parties. In June 2009, following several months of rumours, Watson confirmed she would be partnering with Burberry as the face of their Autumn/Winter 2009 campaign, for which she received an estimated six-figure fee. She also appeared in Burberry's 2010 Spring/Summer campaign alongside her brother Alex, musicians George Craig and Matt Gilmour, and model Max Hurd. In February 2011, Watson was awarded the Style Icon award from British Elle by Dame Vivienne Westwood. Watson continued her involvement in fashion advertising when she announced she had been chosen as the face of Lancôme in March 2011.

In September 2009, Watson announced her involvement with People Tree, a fair trade fashion brand. Watson worked as a creative adviser for the company to create a spring line of clothing, which was released in February 2010; the range featured styles inspired by southern France and London. The collection, described by The Times as "very clever" despite their "quiet hope that [she] would become tangled at the first hemp-woven hurdle", was widely publicised in magazines such as Teen Vogue, Cosmopolitan, and People. Watson, who was not paid for the collaboration, admitted that competition for the range was minimal, but argued that "Fashion is a great way to empower people and give them skills; rather than give cash to charity you can help people by buying the clothes they make and supporting things they take pride in"; adding, "I think young people like me are becoming increasingly aware of the humanitarian issues surrounding fast fashion and want to make good choices but there aren't many options out there." Watson continued her involvement with People Tree, resulting in the release of a 2010 Autumn/Winter collection.

In 2013, Madame Tussauds in London unveiled a wax statue of Watson wearing an Elie Saab haute couture design donated to the museum by the designer. A spokesperson for the museum stated, "[Watson] is one of the most requested personalities by our guests. She's a true English rose known and loved by millions of film and fashion fans around the world". Watson was awarded Best British Style at the 2014 British Fashion Awards. The competition included David Beckham, Amal Clooney, Kate Moss, and Keira Knightley.

Watson has been described as "an early adopter of sustainable fashion" and is noted for dressing ethically on the red carpet. She wore a Calvin Klein gown to the 2016 Met Gala made out of recycled plastic bottles. Watson has supported Good On You, an app that acts as a directory for the sustainability level of fashion brands. In 2017, she began updating an Instagram account entitled "The Press Tour", detailing the ethical brands she wore during the press tours for films such as Beauty and the Beast and The Circle. Watson guest-edited the March 2018 issue of Vogue Australia focusing on fashion sustainability, and was photographed by Peter Lindbergh for the magazine. In January 2020, she partnered with consignment website ThredUP to launch a "Fashion Footprint Calculator", which allows website visitors to calculate the carbon impact of their wardrobes and ways to reduce it.

In June 2020, Watson was appointed the youngest member of the board of directors of Kering, the owner of various fashion brands such as Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent. Watson will chair Kering's sustainability committee. Kering chairman François-Henri Pinault praised the new board members' "knowledge and competences, and the multiplicity of their backgrounds and perspectives". Watson stated she "hope[d] to influence decisions that will impact future generations and the world that we leave them" and was "extremely excited" to collaborate with the Kering Foundation as part of their women's rights work and looked forward to making a difference "behind the scenes". She served in this capacity until 2023.

In August 2022, Watson became the face of Prada Beauty's new fragrance Paradoxe. She starred in, directed, wrote and narrated the short film for the fragrance's promotional campaign. In January 2024, Watson became the face of Prada's Re-Nylon collection, the sustainable product line of the brand.