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Surely, many eldest daughters can relate to Diane Keaton’s style origin story. As the firstborn, she says, “you are essentially your parents’ first doll.” Keaton’s book Fashion First, out this month from Rizzoli, is an elevated scrapbook of sorts that begins with her early days in ruffled Shirley Temple dresses, home-sewn by her mother, and careens through what, in 2024 parlance, you might call her fashion “eras.” There were sartorial detours aplenty along the way: a leopard-print DVF wrap jumpsuit worthy of Studio 54, mod minis, and even a short-lived blonde moment.
Keaton in Thom Browne at the designer’s 2023 couture show.
But soon, the style Keaton would become known for crystallized into an iconic silhouette: menswear suiting in the mode of Dietrich and Hepburn. In the foreword to the book, Ralph Lauren says, “I am often credited with dressing Diane in her Oscar-winning role as Annie Hall. Not so. Annie’s style was Diane’s style.” An avid Goodwill shopper long before the advent of thrift hauls, Keaton bricolaged together her look with layers of vintage finds. The result would define not just that role, but her image going forward.
Keaton goes deep on her love of accessories, from hats and gloves to layered cross necklaces. And, of course, belts the size of a Buick. She even tried to wear a bowler hat to her prom, “but my mother said, ‘Maybe another time, Diane.’ And the bowler hat stayed home.” Decades later, it would be her plus-one to events as rarefied as the Oscars.
No wonder she’s become a fashion icon to Gen Z, and an avatar of the “coastal grandmother” aesthetic. At Thom Browne’s 2023 couture show, she looked right at home next to youngsters like Emma Chamberlain in the designer’s seersucker suit and straw bowler. “Diane is a true individual,” Browne says. “She has a confidence in herself that is so uniquely her, and everything she wears feels so natural because of this.”
Keaton in Annie Hall.
Another scene from Annie Hall.
When you see a young actress sporting menswear on the red carpet, she is following the path Keaton blazed with looks like the Richard Tyler suit she wore to the 1976 Oscars. At the time, dresses were de rigueur for those events, and sartorial daring was frowned upon. Luckily, Keaton was able to recruit designer allies to create looks that matched her audacity. Her fellow Diane (von Furstenberg, that is) calls her “a true icon…she has always represented coolness, freedom, and irresistible charm!” J.Crew women’s and Crewcuts creative director Olympia Gayot, who’s worked with Keaton on several campaigns for the brand, notes that “not only is her approach to fashion unmatched, but her energy and personality are infectious.”
Keaton wearing her signature bowler hat in 1996.
But Keaton remains self-deprecating as she riffs on her fashion moments, like a friend going through old albums, equally nostalgic and horrified. “If I were to describe my so-called ‘street style,’” she writes, “I would say, GET RID OF MY ENTIRE BODY, including my eyes, my nose, my mouth, all of my legs, and the rest of me. Sadly, I need a nose and a mouth to live and breathe, but that doesn’t mean I need to show them off.”
This story appears in the September 2024 issue of ELLE.
Véronique Hyland is ELLE’s Fashion Features Director and the author of the book Dress Code, which was selected as one of The New Yorker’s Best Books of the Year. Her writing has previously appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, W, New York magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, and Condé Nast Traveler.