At 79, Glenn Close is having more fun with fashion than ever
At 79, Glenn Close is having more fun with fashion than ever
Jan MastersSun, November 8, 2026 at 7:00 AM UTC
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Glenn Close wears a moss-green taffeta dress by Simone Rocha to the London premiere of The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping - WireImage/Karwai Tang
There’s making an entrance, then there’s Glenn Close making an entrance. As she approaches her 80th birthday, the legendary actor, who throughout her career has always known costume is integral to character, still understands how to own the red carpet with a dress code that simply reads “dramatic”. And crikey, is she having fun with fashion right now. Having been working with stylist and Hollywood hot property Andrew Gelwicks, who lists Sarah Jessica Parker and Laura Dern as clients, she’s certainly not playing it safe. And she’s relishing it.
A string of promotional events has seen her rocking up in show-stopping outfits, particularly for the new prequel The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, in which she plays the mean, vain, ruthless Capitol escort Drusilla Sickle. In the film, she’s unrecognisable in a ginger bob with face-distorting taping and prosthetics, including a stretched-sideways mouth slashed with scarlet lipstick. And is that a raven perched on her head? Of course it is.
So for the recent London premiere, it would have felt strangely discordant had she opted for traditional red carpet glamour. Cue a moss-green taffeta dress by Irish designer Simone Rocha, who is known for riffing on historical silhouettes and subversive femininity. The unconventional proportions of the voluminous gown, gathered in a giant drop-waist bow, paired with long black leather opera gloves was an outfit that nodded to Close’s own love of fashion as well as the world of the movie. As for her walking cane, she was using it for a real-life practical reason – she’s recovering from a total hip replacement – but who else could turn it into a coordinated accessory and wield it so unapologetically and with such charm?
Close and Gelwicks have worked together to create several high-profile fashion moments, such as the recent Hunger Games premiere - WireImage/Karwai Tang
Sure, the look won’t be everyone’s cup of Bovril, but boring it is not. Neither are the other sartorial statements she’s been sporting this season, such as the shoot for Entertainment Weekly starring the cast of The Hunger Games – a lush, living fresco with fashion pieces, while not lifted from the film, suggestive of its aesthetics. Gelwicks styled Close in a way that seemed to sync with Rocha’s creation, this time in a Prabal Gurung mint jacquard long coat with a belt tied super-low. Her wig had been frothed into a frenzy under a cloud of white net, and draped across her body was not a scarf but a real yellow python. Naturally.
Starring in the new Women of the Year 2026 issue of Harper’s Bazaar UK, she was shot in an array of styles including a minidress and Barbarella-style white boots. “I’m always grateful for a costume,” she reveals. “Because I know who I am in a costume. I don’t always know who I am when I’m not in a costume. I feel I’m still an unfinished character.”
Cut to the New York premiere of the second season of All’s Fair. And to be fair, while the series was panned by The Telegraph’s reviewer, the fashion pack loved the look, which was surely channelling Cruella de Vil. Her structured cream coat with cinched waist, high collar and hem and cuffs artfully tattered and torn, was created by one of the most avant-garde brands out there, Matières Fécales (you do the translation). Gelwicks teamed it with black boots. On her arm? A taller version of herself! Performance and special-effects makeup artist Alexis Stone recreated himself as a carbon copy of Close, thanks to a prosthetic metamorphosis and a twinning outfit.
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(L-R) Stone and Close at the New York premiere of All’s Fair on November 2 - WireImage/Theo Wargo
This, however, is not a period of image reinvention. Nor is it someone trying to prove she can look younger than her years. After all, this is the lady set to play King Herod in Jesus Christ Superstar at Theatre Royal Drury Lane, where she’ll be the final star in the ever-changing line-up of Herods that includes Michael Ball and Simon Russell Beale. In casting terms, it’s biblical.
While Close has donned feminine frills, swirling capes and shimmery sequins, not to mention the extraordinary Met Gala Erdem gown with its endless train of rippling eau de nil taffeta, she’s also made trouser suits her own. To the Film Independent Spirit Awards in 2019, she sported a metallic lavender suit by Sies Marjan and was escorted by her dog, Sir Pippin of Beanfield.
Wearing custom Erdem to the 2023 Met Gala - WireImage/John Shearer
And when she wore a white Ralph Lauren suit to the designer’s autumn/winter 2024 show (the same outfit she had worn to the 2019 SAG Awards), she revealed from a cab en route to the event that she was planning to retire it to her costume collection, a massive archive of more than 800 pieces, which she has donated to the Elizabeth Sage Historic Costume Collection at Indiana University, where it will be preserved for education, exhibition and research.
The white Ralph Lauren suit Close wore to the designer’s show in 2024 was slated to be retired into her extensive costume collection at Indiana University - GC Images/The Hapa Blonde
“Glenn is an incredible actor with a real love for fashion,” says creative director and stylist Sascha Lilic, who worked with her on the promotional campaigns for the Broadway revival of Sunset Boulevard. “She got in touch with me weeks before, asking if we could source original art deco pieces for Norma Desmond, so I was chasing round antiques dealers and museums,” he says. He remembers her walking into the studio in a nice sweater as “Glenn Close the woman” and then witnessing her transformation. “Clothes and makeup become the skin of her characters, while she inhabits their very souls.”
Indeed not many directors would devote the first three minutes of a film to a dialogue-free scene of people getting dressed, but Stephen Frears did in Dangerous Liaisons and watching Close as the Marquise de Merteuil being preened, powdered and pinned into her pannier dress was mesmerising. While key to the narrative, it also served as an insight into her working process.
“She has immense patience when being dressed and also understands light and its effects by heart, almost like a Marlene Dietrich or Gloria Swanson,” adds Lilic. “She uses it not to flatter but to make her face infinitely more persuasive in the moment.” In short, she brings new meaning to being ready for a close-up.
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
