The Red Carpet Has No Age Limit

Those searching for signs of exactly what the current mood around getting dressed is need look no further than the recently announced reboot of the popular aughts series What Not to Wear; this time around, it’s going by the name Wear Whatever the F You Want. Which is only fitting. Fashion feels less prescriptive, more risky, and infinitely more fun than it did even a decade ago. Nowhere is this more apparent than on the red carpet—notably among stars who weren’t born yesterday.

Gone are the days of flattering-but-dull column dresses in neutral tones for women over 40; gone are the sexless pantsuits; gone, in many cases, are modest touches like sleeves. In their place are edgier, sexier looks featuring cutouts, dramatic beading, and look-at-me, body-skimming silhouettes.

Kidman at the premiere of Expats.

At the New York premiere of Feud: Capote vs. The Swans, Chloë Sevigny, 50, wore a strapless Christopher John Rogers dress with an exaggerated bow; Naomi Watts, 55, a lace dress with daring cutouts by Givenchy Haute Couture; Molly Ringwald, 55, a black sleeveless dress with a mermaid skirt from Rodarte; Demi Moore, 61, a wild, beaded-and-feathered Balmain; and Calista Flockhart, 59, a graphic zigzag gown by Zuhair Murad. For a group of women aged mostly over 50 (Sevigny was 49 at the time of the event), it was both a revelation and—at this moment in time—not really a surprise.

Likewise, check out pretty much every outfit the fearless Michelle Yeoh, 62, wore on the Everything Everywhere All at Once press tour—an embarrassment of captivating, challenging looks, from sculptural Schiaparelli to nervy, fringed Bottega Veneta. Or the showstopping custom silver sequin Balenciaga dress she wore to this year’s Oscars. There’s also Nicole Kidman, 57, who turned up in a (skin-baring) Atelier Versace iteration of the Italian house’s famed safety pin dress for the New York premiere of Expats.

Jennifer Lopez attends the premiere of Unstoppable at the Toronto International Film Festival, wearing Tamara Ralph.

Jessica Morgan of the celebrity style blog Go Fug Yourself thinks this is less a trend and more of an evolution: “What we’re seeing is female celebrities—and I think this applies broadly to Gen X in general—continuing to dress in what appeals to them and what has always been their style. The old-school ideas of how you should style yourself after a certain age have stopped feeling relevant.”

The cast of Feud: Capote’s Swans at the show’s premiere.

It’s not a stretch to suggest that these stars are—at an age that history has traditionally told women to step back and let the younger generation shine—asserting their sex appeal and style, and doing everything but step into the shadows. And this makes sense: Older women have a confidence and sense of self that only comes with age, and they often look more assured than younger stars trying to pull off similar looks. They’re getting away with changing the rules for how an older woman should dress—and it’s about time.

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This article appears in the December/January 2024/2025 issue of ELLE.

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Kim France is the founding editor in chief of Lucky magazine. She co-hosts the podcast Everything is Fine, and writes the newsletter Girls of a Certain Age.