The sudden loss of a beloved star always causes pain and shock in her public. But for many of us who grew up watching Diane Keaton, this feels different, as if we have lost a kind of ageless sprite we expected to have floating alongside us forever.
This has a lot to do with Ms. Keaton’s famous style, which was more than just a series of charmingly quirky outfits. Although she was 79, Diane Keaton seemed, not young, but also not old. Not really anything connected to time or its calibration. Instead, she seemed to exist on a plane entirely separate from such mundane matters. In part, this is because she hewed to one recognizable look that remained constant for over 50 years. We know the Annie-Hall-ish basics by heart: the brimmed hats, wide belts, slouchy vests, baggy trousers or big skirts, big scarves, spectacles (often tinted) and unfussy hair and makeup.
Even at super-glam events like the Academy Awards, where actresses typically display acres of bare flesh and elaborately made-up (often surgically modified) faces, Ms. Keaton looked eternally herself — comfortably elegant in glasses, pants, hat and maybe a necktie. Not only did she resist Hollywood’s objectifying and ageist beauty standards, her boho, free and slightly androgynous style felt very 1970s. It invoked, that is, that era of feminist promises.
In seeming so authentic and unfettered — both physically and personally — Ms. Keaton felt like a reminder of those promises, like a rare bird soaring in from bygone days when progress and growing freedoms for women seemed inevitable.
She never amazed us with how oddly young (or old) she looked. Nor did she ever seem to adapt or modify her look as she aged, because it simply had nothing to do with age at all. And so, by never appearing to defy or combat age or time, she managed to sidestep them completely, remaining somehow ethereally “other.”
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The post Why Diane Keaton’s Death Hits Harder appeared first on New York Times.
