Lessons from the stylish: Rosamund Pike Actress Rosamund Pike favours a frock, but unless she's on the red carpet, prefers her Converses to an elegant heel. Rosamund Pike isn't one of those actresses who pretends not to care how she looks. Like the diligent Oxford English graduate she is, she's analysed the business of style. The costume designer on any production is a real ally. Without a sensitive one, your character becomes horribly obvious. She's thinking of the role she played in Jack Reacher opposite Tom Cruise. Americans would call her a type-A personality. A bad costume designer might have wanted her stiff, starched and buttoned up. It was great that we could give her a more interesting, relaxed vibe. WATCH: Behind the scenes on Rosamund Pike's L.K. Bennett campaign When it comes to the red carpet, she's particularly engaged. It's easier if you do - and you learn stuff. For instance, she's discovered how to navigate the career tremors, good and bad, that come from event dressing. Sometimes, if your character's really dowdy it's useful to go out and wow on the red carpet and remind people that you've got legs. She's learnt that when heavily pregnant with her son Solo, now 14 months old, opting out of the press junket for Wrath of the Titans was a wise decision. Waddling up the red carpet, she felt, "might detract from what I was hoping people would take from the sort of warrior queen I played on screen." And she knows that when carpeteering with comedians on a hot summer's night in London (for The World's End premiere, in which she stars opposite Simon Pegg, a fortnight ago), short is a more playful option than long. READ: Lessons from the stylish: Tamara Rojo You're never entirely fail-proof. When we did the Madrid premiere for Jack Reacher I thought, 'Spain! Drama!' and turned up in a jewelled Pucci dress. But the Spanish are incredibly low-key about their premieres. The photographers don't use flash, the dress looked really flat..." Tom Cruise turned up in a ski jacket. Pike, 34, doesn't really do sloppy. When we meet, she's en route for rehearsals in Elephant and Castle - wearing a white LK Bennett coat (she's in their current and next season's ad campaigns), printed silk dress and ankle boots. It's pristine and meticulously put together. "I like the sanity of white," she says. The only child of opera singers, she was taught the importance of good presentation. My grandmother made all my mother's concert dresses - she was a fantastic dressmaker, so in terms of fabric, cut and tailoring, I know an unbelievable amount. She gets everything tailored. "I'd never turn up to rehearsal in sweats," she says, her expressive eyebrows flatlining at the suggestion. Perhaps that oft-reported Oxford education is one reason she's not hung up about openly enjoying fashion. Indirectly, it may even have been the catalyst. Inauspiciously, she was rejected by every drama school. "I think sometimes there is - or was - this notion that if you're academic you're somehow not in touch with your emotions," she reflects. She looks slightly aghast when I ask if she'd describe her style as classic. I like dresses, but I'll wear them with Converses or ankle boots. And I like to clash prints. Rosamund Pike at The World's End premiere wearing Victoria Beckham; Julie Christie, her design muse. Photos: REX Pike's elegantly icy blond beauty could easily seem aloof. Combined with her deep, mellifluous RP she could have the crasser members of the film industry cowering in their Armani suits. Recently however, she's turned herself into a hot, albeit intellectual Hollywood property - not quite in the Kate Winslet mould, but not as terrifying as Vanessa Redgrave either. So it's a categorical no to a classic trench, but yes to the Junya Watanabe denim trench-with-a-kick she sold on eBay last year and for which she now pines. EBay seems to play a large part in her life. My partner [Robie Uniacke, Solo's father] has a 100 per cent approval rating on eBay so we spend a lot of time hand-delivering items to keep it that way. I find it quite oppressive to have too much stuff. I'm very lucky. I get given some beautiful things but I'm not a mad shopaholic and I don't have walk-in wardrobes. I buy quite carefully and I like reinventing things. Read more of Lisa's Conversations with the Stylish here Listening to Pike it becomes clear that shaping an image is a constant balancing act. Her first film role, aged 23, was in Die Another Day , opposite Pierce Brosnan - an unusual choice for an English graduate. Was that why she then turned down a Revlon contract? At the time there was still a school of thinking that serious actresses didn't do that kind of stuff. Or maybe I felt it wouldn't complement the profile I had at the time. I was a Bond girl. Nobody knew me... They do now, though perhaps not the extent of her versatility. She can do a fine comic turn too - and is currently filming with David Tennant and the team behind the BBC's hit comedy Outnumbered . She's sussed how to use fashion to round out her persona. As well as modelling in the LK Bennett ads, she's designed a bag for them - and I do mean design. She sketched it out and was minutely involved in the details. I wanted it primarily to be something you carried, not a shoulder bag. I love those pictures of Julie Christie swinging her bag in the Sixties. She requested a quality lining and a chunky zip. So many bags are ruined by cheap zips. READ: Lessons from the stylish: Annabel Hodin She was particularly fastidious about the hardware, which includes a tiny safety-pin pull, based on one of her favourite earrings. Interestingly, she's succeeded where many expert bag designers have failed. The Rosamund (also available in Rosa and Rosie sizes) is that rare commodity: a bag with just the right number of compartments that looks much more expensive than it is. But does she ever call herself Rose? Sometimes... all right, usually when I'm in Starbucks and they ask your name.