FROM ghost to fashion designer.

No wonder Lenora Crichlow says the lead in BBC1’s new fashion industry series Material Girl is totally different to playing dead in Being Human.

“It’s a very different role to playing a ghost and a very different world to the one I’m used to as Lenora,” she says.

“I can’t say that I move and shake in the world of fashion, but it’s wonderful to get to do something completely different.

“I get my hair and make-up done every morning and I get the chance to wear fabulous clothes.”

Viewers get the chance to compare and contrast her two performances, as Being Human returns this weekend and Material Girl starts on Thursday.

She’s always been interested in the clothes side, but isn’t that familiar with the fashion industry. “For me, it just comes out of a quite innocent sense of style,” explains the actress, who also starred in C4’s Sugar Rush.

“I just like being a bit different and then finding what suits me. I don’t really follow fashion exactly, but I’ve always been very interested in the way that you present yourself as an expression of yourself, so that’s my idea of fashion and style.”

Material Girl is a romantic comedy about a young fashion designer – that’s Crichlow’s Ali – battling an evil ex-boss, a sexy, but devilish business partner, and snobby fashionistas to get her break in work and love.

Dervla Kirwin co-stars as Davina Bailey, a scheming designer not about to give up her crown as queen of fashion, and the designer every hot star wants to be dressed by. Michael Landes is the business partner determined to make Ali a star in the fashion world.

Crichlow describes Ali’s style as “unfussy, practical and sexy”. She wears a lot of vintage and there’s a timeless element to those clothes. She feels it was important that people can relate to her.

“Ralph Wheeler-Holes, the very talented costume designer, mixed up vintage with a lot of High Street, which is a very different look to what I would normally wear. He thinks completely outside the box.

“Seeing how Ralph has taken vintage clothes and put them alongside new pieces, making an outfit look fantastic, has made me think about my look.”

There’s added pressure taking on the lead role after Being Human and Sugar Rush, in which she shared the spotlight.

“I felt I had my backing singers. I felt like a joint lead,” she explains.

“In Material Girl, I feel very much the central character because everything revolves around Ali’s story, but I feel like there’s a huge family around me.

“Maybe because it’s BBC1, I feel like I’ve got a lot of support so if the pressure builds, there are lots of people I can go and talk to. I’m also very good under pressure.”

Ali is a joy to play, she says, because she wears her heart on her sleeve. She represents an honest, integral, accessible person and the actress thinks everyone should be able to tap into a part of her.

“As a character, she loves life and she’s very fun, she loves her friends, she can be a bit melodramatic – but who isn’t?,”

she says.

She doesn’t see Material Girl as tapping into the bitchy and backstabbing side of the fashion industry. Ali’s fight is the challenge of starting a fashion label and learning the business.

“In that storyline, there’s a lot more scope for her to come up against the demons of the business and see if she’s got what it takes. The fashion world can be very fickle, but Material Girl focuses on the fun element.”

Her love life is as complicated as any TV heroine. Ali has a complicated relationship with business partner Marco and a boyfriend, Chris, “who charms the pants off her in a bowling alley – he literally bowls her off her feet”. All is going well until her ex turns up. Not only that, he employs her boyfriend as a model.

CRICHLOW has tried to make her own outfits. At least, she knitted a scarf and has customised items.

“That’s what I used to do when I was at college. So I’d have a pair of very plain tracksuit bottoms but try and jazz them up by cutting them up and sticking things on them.

“I’m very much inspired by Material Girl. I’ve had to learn how it’s all done and I’m sure it sounds and looks a lot easier than it actually is because everyone around me makes it look very easy.”

For those who thought Being Human was one of the best new dramas of last year, its return will be a much more exciting prospect than Material Girl.

Crichlow is reunited with Russell Tovey and Aidan Turner for the second series about three housemates trying to live normal lives, despite being a werewolf, a ghost and a vampire.

After the death of vampire leader Herrick at the end of series one, the supernatural friends are hoping that they can now get on with their lives, but an even greater danger is lurking, within the very human world of which they want to be a part.

Crichlow’s character Annie has refused to enter the door of death, but her confidence is high and she’s determined to stand up and be counted in the real world, so she gets a job.

■ Being Human returns to BBC3 tomorrow at 9.30pm and Material Girl begins on BBC1 on Thursday, at 8pm.