Elle Fanning says Somewhere director Sofia Coppola helped her get her first training bra

Golden Globe nominee Elle Fanning virtually reunited with director Sofia Coppola for a fashion spread photographed by Zoë Ghertner and styled by Allia Alliata di Montereale.

‘It was like playing photo shoot. I was sitting in my pajamas, having tea,’ the 49-year-old filmmaker recalled in W Magazine‘s annual directors issue.

‘I think we’re all so starved for some beauty and fashion after being home…I wanted the whole thing to be feminine and fancy, because we’re too casual these days.’ 

The former child star – turning 23 on April 9 – bared her back in a flirty white Miu Miu dress featuring a train.

Hairstylist Lorraine Glynn coiffed Elle’s signature flaxen locks and make-up artist Erin Ayanian Monroe made sure she was ready for her close-up.

Fanning first worked with Coppola, at age 11, alongside onscreen father Stephen Dorff on her 2010 drama Somewhere, during which she needed her first training bra.

‘That was a moment,’ the Georgia-born blonde recalled. 

‘When you’re 11, you are physically, emotionally, mentally changing. You’re also very influenced by your surroundings. One of my first big film sets being led by a woman created a normalcy to seeing women in charge.’

Elle (born Mary) continued: ‘Sofia is able to strip everyone down in her films. She makes the most mundane, small things in life just so completely magical.’

Seven years later, Fanning played Alicia in Sofia’s 2017 Southern Gothic film The Beguiled, which was her first set without any chaperone.

‘It was like going to college,’ the Independent Spirit Award nominee said.  

‘I remember when I could really hang out with Sofia and Kirsten [Dunst]. We were all at this hotel in New Orleans, and we stayed up really late one night. I felt like I was in with the cool kids.’

The Oscar-winning screenwriter even lent Elle her John Galliano gown to wear to her high school prom.

Coincidentally, Fanning just scored the part of Ali MacGraw in Barry Levinson’s film Francis and The Godfather, about the making of The Godfather helmed by Coppola’s father Francis Ford Coppola.

On February 9, the All the Bright Places actress gave her 5.1M Instagram followers a glimpse at Catherine the Great’s baby bump while shooting season two of Hulu’s The Great.   

Elle and her castmates will next compete for the ensemble in a comedy series trophy at the 27th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, which air April 4 on TNT/TBS.

Fanning will also executive produce and star in the eight-episode Hulu series The Girl from Plainville.

It’s based on 17-year-old Michelle Carter’s involuntary manslaughter of 18-year-old Conrad Roy via text in 2014. 

Meanwhile, the On the Rocks helmer’s next project will be adapting Edith Wharton’s 1913 tragicomedy of manners novel The Custom of the Country into a limited series for Apple.

‘Clearly, I’m drawn to these fancy society ladies,’ Sofia said.

‘Once, my mom was like, “Where does that come from?” And, I don’t know, maybe growing up in the chaos of hippie artists in the seventies – that’s the most opposite world. It’s so foreign to me and how I was brought up. There’s something intriguing there.’