No more harried dash through the car park for the Huawei CFO. She positively strode through the BC Supreme Court Complex, right through the front door and the waiting pack of journalists.

“Nice to see you again,” she told the sheriff holding the door open for her. Earlier, she’d cheerily greeted journalists as she left her home, too.

And she was smiling all the way.

Gone was the “Teenie Weenie Bear University” hoodie, the zippered tops, the yoga pants, the puffy train driver’s hat. Meng’s previous wardrobe has been less captain of industry, more casual comfort.

She once looked like someone plucked randomly from a supermarket queue to find herself plopped at the centre of world-spinning events. On Wednesday, she looked in charge of them.

She looked like the CFO of a global technology firm. She looked like, well, a boss, on her way to a business meeting.

A dark, sharp, dress, that was both form-fitting and businesslike in its drape. A black wool coat. A twinkling hairband. A Chanel quilted leather handbag, blue.

One other accessory revealed her true situation: a GPS tracker strapped to her left ankle, above her black velvet Manolo Blahnik pumps (RRP US$995).

It wasn’t just Meng going for a new look.

After Wednesday’s administrative hearing, a Huawei spokesman stood outside the court complex and delivered a statement that summarised the main arguments of her defence team, albeit free from the risk of scrutiny or rebuttal by opposing counsel or judge. He didn’t take questions.

But it was the first time Huawei has acknowledged the press pack (and rubberneckers) who have gathered on the back steps of the court complex after all of Meng’s appearances.

Other changes are in the offing.

Meng will likely be moving house this weekend. The crown said it had no objections to a change in her bail conditions that would allow her to relocate from her home in the suburbs of Dunbar, to her larger mansion on Matthews Avenue in the exclusive neighbourhood of Shaughnessy. She’s set to move on Saturday.

Her new home is set well back from the street, with a sturdy new gate and a circular driveway.

Scot Filer, CEO of Lions Gate Risk Management, the private security outfit that has been hired by Meng to prevent her from escaping, said the Matthews Avenue home was better suited to its purposes, noting that the larger grounds meant guards could perform their duties “away from direct contact with and questions from the public”.

When Meng gets in and out of her Lions Gate Cadillac Escalade, she will be able to do so “within a controlled perimeter and within the control of the Lions Gate team”, said Filer, in an affidavit in support of the move.

The Dunbar house may be worth C$5 million (US$3.7 million), but it is a rather suburban mansion, valuable mostly for its location between the two campuses of an elite private school.

Meng’s new C$13.3 million (US$9.9 million) digs are altogether more salubrious, just a couple doors down from the official residence of the US consul-general.

The 8,351 square foot home, which has four bedrooms and eight bathrooms, has been undergoing extensive renovations.

Property values may have been plunging across Vancouver – Meng bought the home for C$15 million (US$11.1 million) in 2016 – but it is still on one of the most expensive streets in Vancouver.

The grand home certainly looks right, for the daughter of a billionaire.

Appearances can be tricky: does it really matter where Meng lives, or how she, or any potential defendant, looks in court?

Yet clearly someone thinks it does, whether it be Meng herself or the PR team at Huawei. Yes, appearances matter.