The musk of hair spray clung to the air. Someone asked if Kate Bush had been an inspiration for Balfe’s blunt fringe and soft waves. “I’ll take that,” she responded, turning to her hair stylist, Gareth Bromell, in a sherbet orange t-shirt: “What have you done to me?” she demanded playfully. Delpozo was Balfe’s third fashion week appointment this season; she had managed to squeeze in appearances at Calvin Klein (“There was an aggression to it,” she said) and Noon by Noor—as well as a quick outing to the women’s finals of the U.S. Open—during a week spent promoting the new season of Outlander.

In Outlander, Balfe plays Claire Randall, a British army nurse who finds herself flung back from 1946 to 1743, where she meets, and falls in love with, the Scottish warrior Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan). The series has a devoted, exacting fanbase, with whom Balfe regularly interacts on Twitter, especially when the episodes air. The much-anticipated third season premiered Sunday night with a first episode spanning several centuries, darting between 1746, in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Culloden, and 1948, that began to answer the questions the show posed at the end of the previous season. But its most bracing moment comes at its conclusion, when Claire goes into labor and a doctor sedates her against her will (“Claire’s obstetrician turns out to be yet another repellent sexist monster,” Vulture said in its recap).

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