Girl smashed porcelain, losing head (8)
I believe the answer is:
cornelia
'girl' is the definition.
'smashed porcelain losing head' is the wordplay.
'smashed' indicates anagramming the letters.
'losing head' means to remove the first letter.
'porcelain' with its initial letter taken off is 'orcelain'.
'orcelain' with letters rearranged gives 'CORNELIA'.
(Other definitions for cornelia that I've seen before include "Paragon of Roman motherhood" , "Caroline (anag) -- girl's name" .)