INSTYLE: You styled yourself for this shoot. Is it empowering
to have a certain look that you’ve been able to cultivate?
DIANE KEATON: “I don’t think of it as empowering.”
Protective then, maybe? “Yes, it’s very protective. It hides a
multitude of sins. Flaws, anxiety—things like that. I would not
feel comfor t able i n a shor t sk i r t or somet h i ng cut- off wit h my a r ms
hanging out there. And I’ve always liked hats. They just frame a head.
But, of course, nobody really thinks they’re as great as I do. And hats
also protect you from the sun—I’ve had so many skin cancers.”
You have? “Oh, it’s a serious problem. Today I’m going to the
doctor. I think I have one here [points to her nose]. That’s not
good. I’ve had a lot of operations. So, the sun, I love it, you know?
But I really have to protect my head.”
I read that the hat you wore in Annie Hall [1977] was inspired by a
French actor you met on set? “The truth is, it was on The Godfather
[1972]. Dean Tavoularis was the [production] designer, and he
was with this beautiful French girl. She had on a hat that was like
something you’d see Cary Grant or one of those guys wear. It made me
think, ‘Buy hats’. I thought, ‘God, that would be good. I could do that.’
Which is the story of my life. ‘I could copy this. I could copy that.’”
But then you make it your own. What is your general fashion ethos?
You’ve written that your outfits are “an impenetrable fortress”.
“I was watching Karl Lagerfeld, and now he’s no longer with us, which
is a shame, but, gradually, what happened with time was he looked just
like this [points to the turtleneck she is wearing with elongated sleeves
covering her hands]. He wore gloves. But I’m the master of the hats.”
Where do you shop? “I like Egg in London, Comme des Garçons,
Noodle Stories in L A [and] Dover Street Market. They carry all theseI
n May, Diane Keaton posted a particularly quirky video on her
Instagram account that pretty much served as the impetus for
this shoot. In it she is descending a stairwell in her Los Angeles
home, wearing a checked blazer cinched by a thick black belt, black
pants, loosely tied combat boots and not one but maybe 10 hats
stacked on top of each other. “Which hat do you think I should wear?”
she asks no-one in particular. The five-second clip has since accrued
631,000-plus views and nearly 3,500 comments from supportive fans
and friends such as Michelle Pfeiffer and Candice Bergen.
Of course, over the past several decades, Keaton, forever our
Annie Hall, has worn many chapeaus—as an Oscar-winning
actor, a prolific author, a style connoisseur, a winemaker, a
constant house-flipper and a mum to two (Dexter, 23, and Duke,
18, both of whom she adopted in her fifties).
Sitting in that same house a month later for this interview, Keaton,
73, is friendly and inviting. She gets animated over things such as her
polka-dot manicure and her neighbour’s horses, but ask her anything
remotely to do with the word “icon” or “legacy” and she’ll start
deflecting. And therein lies the paradox: Keaton is a leading lady who’d
rather talk about the bricks she hand-picked for her dream home than
about how hard she worked to secure its contents. What can you do?
She’s a Holly wood original, and that’s why she gets to wear all the hats.