After four years away from the big screen, Sandra Bullock is back in the spotlight at 62, returning to movie theaters and red carpets with Practical Magic 2, in which she once again casts spells alongside Nicole Kidman, her Hollywood counterpart in more ways than one. And if the sequel is not enough to announce her comeback, a strikingly stylish cover shoot for Interview magazine certainly is.
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She never looked as though her life depended on being considered the best-dressed woman in the room
(Illustration: Erez Amiran)
Effortlessly ordinary, extraordinarily successful
With a career stretching back to the late 1980s, Bullock has an impressive filmography that can seem as eclectic as her wardrobe. Add a messy, highly publicized divorce, an Academy Award and a reputation as one of Hollywood's most relatable leading ladies, and the result is a superstar who has somehow managed to shine without making glamour her defining characteristic.
Sandra Bullock in A Time to Kill, 1996: The quintessential anti-star
(Photo: Getty Images/Handout)
Bullock is hardly the first person who comes to mind when you imagine a romantic comedy heroine, an action star, or a maternal figure in a family drama. And yet she has played all of them, convincingly and successfully.
Sandra Bullock in Practical Magic, 1998: The kind of woman you could sit across from at the kitchen table and complain to
(Photo: Getty Images/Handout)
Practical Magic 2 – Trailer
(Courtesy of Tulip Entertainment)
She may be Hollywood's most successful unclassifiable star. We believe her as a bus driver, an adoptive mother, an undercover beauty pageant contestant or a medical engineer stranded in space.
That is not necessarily because she is an extraordinary actress, although she is certainly a good one, but rather, it has to do with the particular kind of screen presence she brings to every role. She arrives without the burden of an overpowering persona, without an elaborate mythology or a cinematic identity that follows her from one movie to the next. Each character begins with a relatively clean slate.
That is precisely what makes Bullock an anti-star, and what has allowed her to build such a varied and successful career in an industry obsessed with putting actresses into easily recognizable categories.
Sandra Bullock at the Academy Awards, 2010: Wearing Marchesa
(Photo: AP Photo/Matt Sayles)
Like Jennifer Aniston, who interviews her for Interview magazine, Bullock has built her career on the paradox of being a global superstar who looks like someone you could sit across from at the kitchen table and complain to about men, dating and diet food. It is an illusion, of course. But who cares? We love loving Sandra Bullock.
How does she dress?
Much as we might dress ourselves, if only we had enormous wealth, influence, celebrity status and access to custom-made Louis Vuitton gowns.
Sandra Bullock at the Academy Awards, 2018: Wearing Louis Vuitton
(Photo: Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)
For three decades, Bullock has approached fashion much as she has approached her career: trying a little of everything, committing to almost nothing, occasionally getting it exactly right and sometimes missing the mark.
She has never looked as though her life depended on convincing everyone that she was the best-dressed woman in the room.
She is an accidental superstar and an incidental fashionista, rather like the train station employee she played in While You Were Sleeping, who suddenly finds herself engaged to a handsome, wealthy man in a coma whom she does not even know.
Sandra Bullock at the London premiere of Ocean's 8, 2018: Wearing a Zuhair Murad jumpsuit
(Photo: Tim P. Whitby/Getty Images)
Unlike many Hollywood stars, Bullock has no exclusive relationship with a particular fashion house. She moves freely between designers and aesthetics, often appearing in something entirely different from her previous red-carpet look.
Over the past year, which could reasonably be described as her comeback year, she has compressed decades of fashion experimentation into a particularly concentrated series of appearances. She appears to be selecting the strongest moments from her past and reassembling them into a sharper, more dramatic visual identity.
Her current wardrobe includes recognizable echoes of earlier red-carpet triumphs, but the result feels more deliberate, focused and confident.
Sandra Bullock at the Golden Globe Awards, 2020: Wearing Elie Saab
(Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
At the London premiere of Practical Magic 2 in August, Bullock wore a Givenchy corset gown featuring an enormous thigh-high slit, an oversized bow and a leopard print. During another promotional appearance in London, she traded that look for a black Erdem blazer with lace detailing and an asymmetrical ivory skirt.
Sandra Bullock at the London premiere of Practical Magic 2, 2026: Wearing Givenchy
(Photo: Millie Turner/Invision/AP)
Sandra Bullock at a Practical Magic 2 event in London, 2026: Wearing Erdem
(Photo: Kate Green/Getty Images)
When the premiere moved to Los Angeles, Bullock appeared in a black Louis Vuitton gown with a graphic, almost severe silhouette, complete with a pointed white collar and matching cuffs. At a screening in Austin, she chose a dress by designer Ulla Johnson, again in black, this time featuring a plunging lace-up neckline and a sheer skirt.
Black clearly dominates her current wardrobe, but what makes these appearances interesting is that no two outfits seem to speak the same stylistic language. Each offers a different interpretation of darkness, femininity and sophistication.
Sandra Bullock at the Los Angeles premiere of Practical Magic 2, 2026: Wearing Louis Vuitton
(Photo: Monica Schipper/Getty Images)
The defining fashion moment, however, arrived with her appearance in Interview magazine. On the cover, wearing a Loewe dress and coat, Bullock presents an almost gothic image. She is not smiling, sparkling or performing the familiar rituals of Hollywood glamour.
Instead, she is doing almost the opposite of what might be expected from a 62-year-old actress staging a major comeback. She is not trying to appear younger, more approachable or conventionally sexy. The focus shifts to something darker, stranger and faintly supernatural.
Naturally, the imagery complements the movie she is promoting. But it also makes a fashion statement that goes well beyond the familiar spectacle of a "beautiful woman wearing beautiful clothes".
Sandra Bullock on the cover of Interview magazine, 2026
Inside the magazine, Bullock appears in designs by Bottega Veneta, Calvin Klein, Jacquemus and Saint Laurent. Together, the photographs create an enchanted, peculiar, almost painterly atmosphere.
They also remind us that the absence of traditional Hollywood glamour does absolutely nothing to diminish Bullock's appeal.
Sandra Bullock at CinemaCon, 2026: Wearing Gabriela Hearst
(Photo: Bryan Steffy/Getty Images for CinemaCon)
Sandra Bullock at the Texas premiere of The Lost City, 2022: A step toward her current aesthetic, wearing Stella McCartney
(Photo: Jack Plunkett/Invision/AP)
What comes next?
Bullock, it seems, is not going anywhere. She might even return to the romantic comedies she once moved away from in pursuit of recognition as a serious actress. After all, people can fall in love after 60, too. Or, as she put it herself: "Some people want to bring sexy back. We're going to bring funny back."
Sandra Bullock at the Los Angeles premiere of The Lost City, 2022: Wearing Elie Saab
(Photo: Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures)
Applause or rotten tomatoes?
Bullock has never made a particularly big deal of fashion. She has no consistent signature style, and for much of her career she has appeared to dress up simply because the occasion requires it.
She is certainly no Zendaya, who knows how to transform virtually every red carpet into a carefully choreographed fashion statement. And yet, looking back at Bullock's wardrobe over the years, an unexpected realization begins to take shape: She is, in fact, a fashion icon.
There is already a younger generation of actresses, including Maisie Williams, who appears alongside her in Practical Magic 2, treating Bullock's wardrobe as a fashion archive worth revisiting and referencing.
Sandra Bullock at a Netflix event, 2021: Wearing a Stella McCartney jumpsuit
(Photo: Rachel Murray/Getty Images for Netflix)
Sandra Bullock at a London screening of The Lost City, 2022: Wearing Carolina Herrera
(Photo: Jeff Spicer/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures)