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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Jess Cartner-Morley

Diane Keaton’s style: she dodged the stamp of the machine

Diane Keaton in a black suit with baggy trousers and a black hat.
Diane Keaton helped bring masculine styling into the mainstream of women’s fashion. Photograph: Michael Buckner/WWD/Getty Images

Personal style is the best kind of style there is, and no one did personal style better than Diane Keaton. Her signature look was shirts and ties, snappy waistcoats and baggy trousers, an idiosyncratic version of menswear that was somehow both elegant and goofy. It was part Beau Brummell and part Charlie Chaplin. “Borrowed from the boys” does not do it justice; she made it entirely her own.

The charm of her wardrobe was that it was exactly her. She was a world-class beauty who didn’t lead with her looks. A quiet subversive who, in the most cookie-cutter of Hollywood eras, dodged the stamp of the machine and chose to live her life her own way. It was never about menswear as power dressing. With a sunny smile, she broke all the rules of celebrity dressing with the disarming sweetness and quiet intelligence that she brought to her screen personas.

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