Playful and imperfect, Diane Keaton was a singular style icon

By Oscar Holland, CNN

(CNN) — Following the news that actor Diane Keaton died on the weekend, aged 79, a clip of her at a Ralph Lauren show in 2022 resurfaced on social media. Runways can be serious places, but the Oscar-winner is clearly having a ball — drinking wine, laughing, bopping her head to the music and cheering models as they pass by.

The moment not only encapsulates the androgynous tailored style she was known for, or the fact labels wanted her on their front rows — it demonstrates that Keaton was someone for whom fashion was instinctively, irrepressibly fun.

In an age when celebrities rarely leave the house without the help of a stylist (and in an industry where everyone is fashionable, though few are truly stylish), Keaton’s approach was singular. Expressive and imperfect, but always charming, her personal style was just that: personal. Her wardrobe of blazers, bowler hats and countless turtlenecks was unmistakenly her own. She was her own 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 through Hollywood predated the fashion industry’s fixation on curating stars’ every look. And her love of clothes predated her fame. In her coffee table book “Fashion First,” released in 2024, the actor recounted a childhood fascination with accessories and the custom outfits her mother created on the family sewing machine.

By the time she rose to prominence in the 1970s through the first installments of “The Godfather” trilogy, her sense of style was well honed. On screen, meanwhile, the boundary between fact and fiction became blurred.

While it would usually be unfair to judge an actor’s style on their costumes, Keaton effectively dressed herself for her defining role in 1977’s “Annie Hall.” She did so on the instruction of director Woody Allen, who had loosely based the character on her (and the movie itself on their relationship). Hall’s subversion of menswear — floppy hats, loose slacks and oversized collared shirts, or a necktie bursting out from the bottom of a waistcoat — was, in many ways, Keaton’s own.

The outfit she wore to collect an Oscar for that performance was also 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 red carpet strayed from conventional eveningwear. This was not, by any measure, method dressing: Her love of bowler hats, pleated pants and tuxedos long outlived her “Annie Hall” era. So, too, did her penchant for extra-wide belts, statement eyewear, cravats, pocket squares and all manner of accessories that helped stamp her personality onto any given outfit.

None of this is to say her style failed to evolve. Often pictured attending fashion weeks and runway shows, Keaton clearly kept abreast of trends, incorporating them into her wardrobe. She wore Comme des Garçons and Thom Browne when she wanted to push boundaries and have fun with silhouettes; she sported little black dresses and polka-dot skirts to remind critics she had more than pantsuits up her impeccably tailored sleeve.

Her costumes evolved, too. In later movies like “Something’s Gotta Give,” Keaton mastered a certain kind of affluent bicoastal archetype — the way she carried herself in cashmere, crisp shirting and white jeans sometimes saying more about privilege than the scripts themselves. As an actor and person she knew, intimately, that clothes could speak.

Yet, one thing remained consistent: Keaton never took herself as seriously as she took fashion. She dedicated an entire chapter of her aforementioned book to missteps and faux pas, such as the 2004 suit-with-tails that landed her on several “worst dressed” looks. “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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