Diane Keaton, the unapologetic and unbridled Annie Hall to many, whose effervescent smile and bright eyes lit up stage and screen, passed away on Saturday at age 79. The star of films as memorable as The Godfather trilogy, a series of Woody Allen films including Annie Hall and Manhattan, and in later years, comfort capers like The Father of The Bride films and The Book Club series, the Oscar winner’s legacy will live on in the annals of cinema.
What also defined Keaton — and distinguished her from her contemporaries in a cookie-cutter business — was her distinctive sartorial style. Keaton’s sense of fashion — both on screen and off it — has been the subject of much discussion during her lifetime. Many of the biggest names in the world of fashion fell over themselves to dress her, but the actress made sure she brought her personal, singular touch to everything that she wore. After her passing, a New York Times article on her as a style icon best summed it up with its opening line: “Diane Keaton’s clothes were cinema.”
From tailored menswear to coastal chic, Keaton’s looks on screen captured the timeless essence of her vision as a style doyen.
While it was Annie Hall, the 1977 Woody Allen-directed relationship drama, that thrust her into the spotlight, her individuality in fashion was visible even in the Francis Ford Coppola classic The Godfather (1972). As Kay Adams-Corleone, the wife of Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone, her classic wardrobe, though visibly understated from what it would go on to become in future, hinted at the confident elegance that defined her later roles. The clean lines, the quiet sense of assurance was palpable. It was the beginning of a woman defining her personal visual language, one film at a time.
And then came Annie Hall. As the titular character — defined by a latent charm, quirkiness, and eventual independence and confidence — Keaton dug within to come up with her wardrobe in the film, one that has gone down in movie history as one of its most iconic. Who can forget that moment in the film when she emerges after a tennis match in a wide-brimmed hat, khaki pants and an oversized vest with a tie poking out of it? It is, perhaps, one of the most memorable outfits to be seen on screen.
Keaton made Annie’s style part of her performance. In her 2011 memoir Then Again, she wrote that when making Annie Hall, Allen told her to “wear what you want to wear”. She explained: “So I did what Woody said: I wore what I wanted to wear, or, rather, I stole what I wanted to wear from the cool-looking women on the streets of New York.”
Before Annie Hall, women’s wardrobes on screen rarely, if at all, included ties, vests or floppy hats. Keaton rewrote the rulebook — from oversized men’s trousers paired with a fitted vest and tie to slouchy jackets layered over crisp white shirts. The iconic fashion designer Ralph Lauren, often credited with Keaton’s look in the film, once clarified in Fashion First: “I am often credited with dressing Diane in her Oscar-winning role as Annie Hall. Not so. Annie’s style was Diane’s style.”
The energy in Annie Hall is what Keaton carried through the five decades of her career. Every hat, every suit, every turtleneck had its own authentic story to tell, with everyone sure of one thing — that Keaton, as both actor par excellence and fashion icon, would pull off something that no one expected her to.
In later years, when asked what shaped her style, Keaton said that she owed a lot of it to her mother as well as her adoration of golden-era Hollywood stars.
THE MANNISH MUSE
Even before whispers of androgyny in fashion had begun to gain momentum, Keaton took menswear and reimagined it for herself. Her signature look was a largely oddball take on traditional masculine looks — hats and blazers, turtlenecks and button-downs — but done in a way that always felt cool and never costume-y. Whether she was in front of the camera or on the red carpet or just about anywhere, Keaton let her style be defined by unique silhouettes, bold accessories and statement pieces.
In Baby Boom (1987), she made power dressing mainstream for women, but with her personal touch. As J.C. Wiatt — a Manhattan executive turned Vermont entrepreneur — she embodied the working-woman revolution of the ’80s, with signature pieces that included cinched-waist suits with soft shoulder pads and silk blouses that exuded feminine grace. It was a wardrobe that defined and redefined both ambition and authenticity.
COASTAL GRANDMOM CHIC
Many decades later, in Something’s Gotta Give (2003), she ushered in what is now, in the TikTok age, known as “coastal grandmom chic”. The film takes place in the Hamptons in summer, but Keaton — in the role of a playwright who falls for her daughter’s much older boyfriend, played by Jack Nicholson — flaunts an almost all-white wardrobe comprising turtlenecks under sweaters and button-downs. And yet we didn’t raise an eyebrow because Keaton, like always, made it work.
In fact, in a famous scene from the Nancy Meyers film, when Nicholson’s Harry Sanborn asks her: “What’s with the turtlenecks?” She replies: “I like them. I have always liked them... I am just a turtleneck kind of gal!”
LIBERATED LUXE
Off screen, unencumbered by the demands of character and setting, Keaton experimented with aplomb. In a sea of glitzy gowns on red carpets around the world, she would turn up — and turn heads — in quirky, eye-catching off-centre pieces confidently put together.
What is perhaps her most iconic look on the red carpet was at the 1976 Academy Awards. Her white Richard Tyler suit with striped button-down and polka-dotted tie was an immediate standout. To this day it is considered to be one of the most iconic looks in Oscars history. Many defining looks followed over the years — Nehru jackets, tulle skirts, plaid shirts, pointed booties and, of course, her signature bowler hat. Always iconic, always Diane Keaton.
In a ceremony held a few years ago to honour Keaton, actor Meryl Streep had said it in a way few others could have. “Diane Keaton, arguably the most ‘covered up’ person in the history of clothes, is also a transparent woman. There is nobody who stands as exposed, more undefended and just willing to show herself, both inside and out than Diane.”
Always a trailblazer, unfraid of who she was and wanted to be.