Elle Fanning Is Trading Her "Princess Vibe" for a "Fashion Adventure" With Coach

She may be known for vintage-inspired dresses and princess-y pastels, but Elle Fanning has a ready-to-wear-everything attitude. "I'll try anything if it doesn't wear me," the actress tells me over the phone from London, where she's just touched down for press surrounding the latest installment in the Predator sci-fi franchise. "I always try to be pretty experimental. I don't like to get too stuck in my ways when it comes to fashion."

Fanning and her longtime stylist, Samantha McMillen, live up to that ideal even when they're pulling looks from a single designer rack. Coach has been Fanning's go-to designer for bags and head-to-toe looks of late, but none look exactly the same. (She's been a brand ambassador since 2024.) She attended the Cannes Film Festival in a wispy teal chiffon dress and a coordinating Tabby bag this summer; by the time Coach's Spring 2026 fashion show rolled around in September, she'd sample a denim military jacket and extra-long jeans. Some celebrities find a single mood and run with it, but not her.

"I'm a different girl each day," she explains.

Fanning gets into the up-for-anything spirit in her latest Coach campaign, "The Gift for New Adventures." She sets off on a holiday train ride escapade with co-stars Charles Melton and Griff, in an outfit she'd easily copy and paste back into her real-life wardrobe. Specifically: an extra oversize teddy coat ("I love a big coat," she emphasizes) and a variation of the Tabby bag she's been snapped carrying on the streets of New York City and London lately.

Like dozens of other celebrities in her orbit, Fanning has a few Coach favorites she keeps in constant rotation. (The Tabby bag, Brooklyn bag, and Soho sneakers have prime placement in her closet.) But she understands that, sometimes, her job calls for a style switch-up, accessories included.

"[It's] not necessarily method dressing, but there is something to when you're promoting a movie, you do want to look right for that film," she says. "There's a certain vibe, like the character does spill over."

Right now, her custom looks are taking an "edgier" turn in the run-up to Predator: Badlands, compared to past red carpet greatest hits. (See, for example, the dreamy 1960s-inspired dresses she wore promoting A Complete Unknown last year.) "The whole film, I'm a robot, but I wear a white leather jacket, which is perfect for Coach," she explains.

For the sci-fi feature's London premiere, she traded a traditional gown for a two-piece maxi skirt set, with a jacket matching her character's layered over the top. "I would say that's a new adventure, taking some fashion risks in that world," she says. "It's shying away, maybe, from the princess vibe, even though it's always there underneath." She might turn back in that direction when her father-daughters dramedy, Sentimental Value, commences its awards season campaign.

A lunch date with Coach creative director Stuart Vevers set the tone for Fanning's current slate of red carpets. The more the pair got to know each other, the more potential for future style trials they uncovered.

"I think that's really special—not all designers do that," she explains. "So I feel like I have a real like personal relationship with him, which is so nice. And to say that he knows my style, he knows my personality, he knows my vibe— that's important." In other words: When Fanning branches out to a red carpet leather jacket, it still manages to feel like her.

Fanning already has new custom Coach looks in the works—but she can't say how much more of an "experiment" they'll be, aesthetically speaking. "I'm always cooking up ideas and trying to imagine fantasy sketches," she teases. "And Stuart has such amazing imagination, so we do that together."

The only hint she can drop is this: "There's some looks to come soon. Maybe before this is even out."