Cerulean is enjoying a high-profile comeback this spring, propelled in part by the promotional rollout for The Devil Wears Prada 2 and a deliberate sartorial nod from one of the film’s stars. On April 1, Meryl Streep appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in a cerulean cashmere sweater — a clear wink to the 2006 classic in which her character famously lectures about the nuances of “not just blue.” The sequel is due in cinemas on May 1, 2026.
According to Vogue, Streep’s sweater was a custom J.Crew piece styled by Micaela Erlanger. Olympia Gayot, the brand’s creative director who is credited with designing the garment, told the magazine the film’s original monologue “is so smart and funny” and that it “reminds you that what feels personal is actually part of a much bigger story,” explaining why the color continues to resonate. The appearance follows a social-media tease from Anne Hathaway: a few days earlier her stylist, Ashley Afriyie, shared a photo of Hathaway wearing a white hoodie with a color-blocked back bearing the word “cerúleo.”
The renewed attention revives a line from the 2006 film in which Miranda Priestly — Streep’s character and the fictional editor-in-chief of Runway — tells her assistant that the sweater’s shade is “not just blue. It’s not turquoise. It’s not lapis.” That bit of dialogue has long been credited with embedding cerulean in pop-culture fashion vocabulary; it now appears poised to influence wardrobes again as the sequel’s publicity events continue.
The timing coincides with a broader wave of cerulean on the runways. Harper’s Bazaar and other fashion outlets have flagged cerulean pieces in Spring/Summer 2026 collections from designers including Tory Burch, Ashlyn and Loewe. Tory Burch staged a show during New York Fashion Week last September that included the shade among its spring offerings, a sign stylistic interest in the color predates the current press tour but has gained momentum in recent months.
Public appetite for cerulean also has empirical support: Crayola named cerulean the nation’s favorite color in 2025, noting it strikes a chord across generations. That intergenerational appeal helps explain why the hue is surfacing simultaneously in celebrity wardrobes, runway collections and mainstream conversation as spring approaches.
With the sequel’s May 1 release date looming, fashion watchers expect more intentional callbacks — and more cerulean — to appear at premieres, press events and on social channels. Whether the color’s resurgence will translate into retail demand at scale remains to be seen, but for now the shade is enjoying renewed attention courtesy of two of its most visible champions on the promotional trail.