When Cheryl Cole shot to fame in 2002 with Girls Aloud, she still wore her hair in cornrows and loved her tracksuits. Now her idea of casual is a pair of Balenciaga jeans teamed with a Joseph mohair jumper, ordered from net-a-porter. 'I couldn't care less what anyone says about the way I look,' she claims. But onstage, Cheryl's costumes are just as carefully put together.
'Audiences want to be visually entertained,' she explains. 'Clothes are a key part of the performance. You could go back to the Sixties and it was the same.'In the early days, Girls Aloud had to do their best to look great on a budget. And even after knocking out the hits, they weren't the toast of the fashion world. 'Some designers wouldn't lend to us,' Cheryl, 28, tells the Daily Telegraph, 'even when we were successful, which was really snobby.