At 76, Meryl Streep Is Making a Statement. The Clothes Are Just Part of It

Streep’s press tour, seen through that lens, is not just a fashion moment. It is a corrective.

Streep’s movie The Devil Wears Prada 2 opens May 1, and the six weeks that preceded it included stops in six cities around the world and upwards of 30 looks, all of which were built around a single idea. Stylist Micaela Erlanger, who has worked with Streep for 11 years, was clear from the start: This tour was not about Miranda Priestly, the imperious magazine editor Streep plays in the film. “We wanted to have a wink and a nod to the original movie, but it’s also about evolution,” she told Vogue. “It was about dressing Meryl Streep as she is now, a powerful and realized woman at the height of her career.”

Julia von Boehm, a creative consultant and celebrity stylist who has dressed Nicole Kidman, Laura Dern and Uma Thurman, watched the tour with a professional eye. What struck her was not the volume of the looks but what held them together. “Her looks are more out there for this press tour, but still I feel like they’re not like a fashion trend,” she says. “She still stays herself.”

That balance showed up city by city. In Seoul, Streep wore a custom Prada red suit; the look was clean, commanding and elegant. In New York, at the world premiere on April 20, Erlanger first sent her out in a Gucci tiger-print fur coat — what the stylist called “a little decoy” on Instagram— before Streep changed into the actual premiere look: a sweeping red Givenchy by Sarah Burton caped gown with black leather opera gloves and David Yurman jewels. “Everything about this look exudes power and confidence,” Erlanger told Vogue. “Every inch of her is covered, but not in a way that feels modest or apologetic. It’s both power and autonomy. It reads as fashion armor while still demanding to be looked at all at once.”

During a photo call in Seoul on April 8, Streep wears a custom red Prada double-breasted suit with a brown leather belt, gold chain necklace and David Yurman jewels.

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Streep arrives at Lincoln Center wearing a Gucci tiger-print fur coat over black trousers with Gucci sunglasses, Fope 1929 jewelry and a Fashionphile clutch — what her stylist Micaela Erlanger called “a little decoy” before the main event.

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For von Boehm, the through line across every look is not the designers or the silhouettes. It’s something inherent to Streep. “She never struggled to stay relevant. She was always herself. She never changed, but she’s still young in spirit and in fashion, and she has humor. Sometimes when she wears something, she takes it with humor, and that’s wonderful. She doesn’t take herself too serious.” And the message that sends to women watching? Von Boehm is unambiguous: “You’re not finished with life. You’re out there and you’re great and you’re confident.”

Applewhite makes a related observation. Streep’s style, she notes, is doing something specific that separates it from the anxiety-driven dressing that often surrounds older women in Hollywood: “Her fashions and her style are not chasing youth.”

Adrienne Jones, who has taught fashion design at New York’s Pratt Institute for more than 25 years, situates Streep within a longer tradition. Women dressing boldly and brilliantly in their later decades is not new, she says — it simply rarely gets this kind of platform. Streep, Jones says, “is just one of many style icons who hits the nail on the head every time she steps out the door.”

What the tour represents for women who aren’t celebrities is something Jones has carefully considered. “Women over 50 are not dead,” she says.

The culture of youth has obscured a practical truth: By the time a woman reaches her 50s, she has largely figured out who she is. “When you’re younger, you really haven’t developed a style yet. You’re still figuring out who you are,” says Jones. That figuring-out process, she argues, is what produces the freedom that defines how older women dress at their best: “Women over 50 are free. I don’t have to fit in any box. I don’t even know what the box is, what the shape of a box is.”

For women who want to start somewhere, Jones has one piece of advice. Forget black as a default. “Start with color,” she says. “Color changes everything.” That means a scarf, a sweater, a cardigan, whatever works for you. “And don’t forget the lipstick.”

Streep attends ‘A Night with The Runway’ Gala Reception for “The Devil Wears Prada 2” at the National Gallery in London on April 23, wearing a floor-length Richard Quinn gown covered in dense black embellishment with Emmanuelle Khanh sunglasses, Sauer jewelry and Wolford fishnet stockings.

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