(InStyle.com) -- With intricate beading, lavish fabrics and flowing silhouettes, these looks are the jewel in the crown of fall fashion. Amanda Peet trumpets their luxe arrival in grand style
At a time when the lives of history's most famous sovereigns -- Elizabeth I, Mary Queen of Scots and Henry VIII --are being projected on screens both large and small, it's altogether fitting that the fashion kingdom would herald a return to royal splendor.
With rich embellishments of beads, sequins and rhinestones bedecking sublime confections of silk chiffon and velvet, fall's most magnificent clothes put the chic in monarchical. In style terms they reign supreme.
"I love the retro, regal air of these looks," says Amanda Peet, 35, who, in some of the images, resembles a Russian empress attended by twin Afghan hounds.
Day to day, she has a far more humble approach to dressing. Her daughter, Frances Pen, was born in February, and the actress is still contending with the realities of breast-feeding and, well, breasts. "I've wanted boobs my entire life, and now I have them and it's hard to fit into things," she says.
Yet for someone who disavows the codes of fashion and "invariably ends up in sweats," Peet is remarkably well schooled when it comes to the who's who of elegant designers, rattling off names like an insider: Thakoon, Marc Jacobs, Balenciaga and her beloved Oscar de la Renta.
The latter designed Peet's wedding dress -- an off-white gown with cascading ruffles, which still makes her sigh -- when she married writer David Benioff in September of last year.
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Fans were crushed when her television vehicle, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, came to an untimely end, but this month the captivating actress can be seen in the film Martian Child. In it Peet plays the friend of John Cusack's character, who adopts a young boy.
Her wardrobe? "It's pretty casual and higgledy-piggledy." No doubt influenced by fall's exuberant finery, she'd relish sinking her teeth into something grander. "It would be fun to play Joan of Arc," she says. Hollywood, are you listening? E-mail to a friend
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