A Night Out with Ella Rubin

Spoken like a true native New Yorker, Ella Rubin knows one indisputable advantage to going out: “I can get in my own bed right after!”

Rubin, who grew up on the Upper West Side, has spent much of her life acting, but lately, the 25-year-old has been especially hard to miss. After playing Anne Hathaway’s daughter in The Idea of You, popping up in Sean Baker’s Oscar-winning Anora, and taking a bloody turn in Until Dawn, she landed her first major television lead in Prime Video’s Sterling Point. In the hit YA series, she plays Annie Jacobson, a Type A It-girl whose seemingly perfect life comes apart when she inherits her late grandfather’s remote Canadian island and starts uncovering long-buried family secrets.

Tonight, however, the only mystery to solve is what to wear to dinner.

Rubin is getting ready for a Chanel fête celebrating the launch of Coco Mademoiselle Crush Absolu, the newest, more intense addition to the Coco Mademoiselle fragrance family, whose campaign stars Gracie Abrams. The dinner is being held at Balthazar, Soho’s perpetually buzzy French brasserie and a New York institution in its own right. Before heading there, Rubin sets the mood: windows open, coffee acquired, music left partially to fate. “I shuffle all my favorite songs and hope for the good ones,” Rubin says.

Her vision for the night’s look is a little more specific. “It’s always exciting to get to feel sophisticated and classic but still undone and a little unruly,” she says. “There’s a spirit of spontaneity at a Chanel event.” Her look for the night lands right in that sweet spot: a silky black Chanel slip dress with a plunging neckline and the brand’s classic black-and-white cap-toe slingbacks, worn with her long brunette hair loose rather than overly styled. The effect is dressy but easy, an approach Rubin achieves by not overthinking it. “I’ve learned it’s always good to go by my first instinct,” she says. “For going out, it’s usually danceable and not too precious.”

That same relaxed glamour carries into her beauty look. Chanel makeup artist Shayna Goldberg aims for a “lived-in, smoky, soft, diffused, and intentionally imperfect” look, pairing a modern smoky eye with fresh, luminous skin and sheer washes of peachy pink on the cheeks and lips. She starts with Chanel Les Beiges Water-Fresh Tint in Medium and Chanel Ultra Le Teint Le Correcteur in B40, adding a warm flush with Chanel Joues Contraste Powder Blush in Jersey. For the eyes, she creates what she calls a “sultry but effortless” effect with the Chanel Les 9 Ombres High Intensity Multi Effect Eyeshadow Palette in The New Smoky and Chanel Stylo Yeux Waterproof Long Lasting Eyeliner in Brun Agapé. Rather than sharp lines or heavy color, the eyes and complexion are diffused and blurred, while Chanel Rouge Coco Longwear Satin Lipstick in Biarritz, Chanel Le Crayon Levres in Nude Brun, and Chanel Rouge Coco Hydra Gloss in Impertinente give her lips subtle definition and a glassy finish.

Rubin may be freshly made up, but according to her, “The best makeup is always after you’ve gotten home, I love that it has a bit of imperfection but still feels refined.”

Then there’s the hair. Rubin is known for the kind of big, tousled, deliberately undone waves the internet can’t stop talking about, and tonight, she keeps that signature volume while going a touch more polished. “When I want to feel most like myself, I wear it natural — as messy and big as possible,” she says. No matter how she wears it, one hair move is nonnegotiable: “Putting my head upside down and shaking my hair. Must-do.”

The final touch to Rubin’s night-out look is one you can’t see. For Rubin, Chanel represents the balance she’s chasing all evening: “transportive and glamorous,” but with “a comfort and ease to the women wearing Chanel.” Tonight’s fragrance plays with that same duality. Coco Mademoiselle Crush Absolu takes the house’s iconic scent in a richer, more magnetic direction: The first spritz is all juicy lychee and grapefruit, but give it a minute, and rose, jasmine, patchouli, vetiver, and ambery vanilla turn it warmer, edgier, and a little sexier.

Rubin sprays it not just on skin, but through her hair. “I move and touch my hair a lot, so I think it sort of creates a bubble of fragrance around me,” she says. Still, she knows when to stop: “No more than two to three sprays. Leave me wanting more!”

Her cue that it’s finally time to leave? “When I’m late!” On her way out, Rubin grabs a bag stocked with a slightly chaotic combination of essentials: sour candy, if she can fit it, and her passport. “I have not had an ID for a few years, and I wonder how long I can maintain the streak,” she says.

Of course, getting dressed is only half the fun. Once Rubin is actually out, there’s a dirty martini to order and, potentially, a pair of slingbacks to abandon. “Sometimes taking your shoes off makes the whole night,” she says.

For all the attention paid to what Rubin is wearing, she’s much more interested in the people around her. Her most Virgo trait, she says, is keeping a note on her phone of small things people mention wanting. “I love giving incredibly specific gifts and planning them.” It tracks with what she hopes people notice about her when she walks into a room: “That I’m curious about them!”

Which, in a city of more than eight million people, means Rubin is unlikely to run out of reasons to go out — or opportunities to make getting dressed up look casually cool — anytime soon.