By Oscar Holland, NCS
(NCS) — Following the information that actor Diane Keaton died on the weekend, aged 79, a clip of her at a Ralph Lauren present in 2022 resurfaced on social media. Runways may be severe locations, however the Oscar-winner is clearly having a ball — ingesting wine, laughing, bopping her head to the music and cheering fashions as they go by.
The second not solely encapsulates the androgynous tailor-made style she was identified for, or the very fact labels needed her on their entrance rows — it demonstrates that Keaton was somebody for whom style was instinctively, irrepressibly enjoyable.
In an age when celebrities hardly ever depart the home with out the assistance of a stylist (and in an business the place everybody is trendy, although few are really fashionable), Keaton’s method was singular. Expressive and imperfect, however all the time charming, her private style was simply that: private. Her wardrobe of blazers, bowler hats and numerous turtlenecks was unmistakenly her personal. She was her personal stylist.
“Diane always marched to the beat of her own drum — in the way she lived, the way she saw the world, and the way she made all of us feel,” Ralph Lauren posted to social media on Sunday. “She was authentic, unique and full of heart. She was always herself — one of a kind.”
Keaton’s ascent by Hollywood predated the style business’s fixation on curating stars’ each look. And her love of garments predated her fame. In her espresso desk e book “Fashion First,” launched in 2024, the actor recounted a childhood fascination with equipment and the customized outfits her mom created on the household stitching machine.
By the time she rose to prominence within the Seventies by the primary installments of “The Godfather” trilogy, her sense of style was properly honed. On display, in the meantime, the boundary between truth and fiction turned blurred.
While it could normally be unfair to evaluate an actor’s style on their costumes, Keaton successfully dressed herself for her defining position in 1977’s “Annie Hall.” She did so on the instruction of director Woody Allen, who had loosely primarily based the character on her (and the film itself on their relationship). Hall’s subversion of menswear — floppy hats, unfastened slacks and outsized collared shirts, or a necktie bursting out from the underside of a waistcoat — was, in some ways, Keaton’s personal.
The outfit she wore to gather an Oscar for that efficiency was additionally distinctly Keaton: a double-breasted Armani blazer, accessorized with a pink carnation and paired with a striped skirt over pants. It put a spirited spin on androgyny at a time when few on the pink carpet strayed from typical eveningwear. This was not, by any measure, technique dressing: Her love of bowler hats, pleated pants and tuxedos lengthy outlived her “Annie Hall” period. So, too, did her penchant for extra-wide belts, assertion eyewear, cravats, pocket squares and all method of equipment that helped stamp her character onto any given outfit.
None of that is to say her style didn’t evolve. Often pictured attending fashion weeks and runway exhibits, Keaton clearly stored abreast of tendencies, incorporating them into her wardrobe. She wore Comme des Garçons and Thom Browne when she needed to push boundaries and have enjoyable with silhouettes; she sported little black clothes and polka-dot skirts to remind critics she had greater than pantsuits up her impeccably tailor-made sleeve.
Her costumes advanced, too. In later films like “Something’s Gotta Give,” Keaton mastered a sure type of prosperous bicoastal archetype — the best way she carried herself in cashmere, crisp shirting and white denims typically saying extra about privilege than the scripts themselves. As an actor and particular person she knew, intimately, that garments may communicate.
Yet, one factor remained constant: Keaton by no means took herself as critically as she took style. She devoted a whole chapter of her aforementioned e book to missteps and fake pas, such because the 2004 suit-with-tails that landed her on a number of “worst dressed” seems to be. “The more we worked on the book we found humor in my choices. I mean hysterics,” she told Women’s Wear Daily. “This is probably my favorite chapter. If we can’t laugh at ourselves, what is life about?”
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