Ahead of the pack
“Two skirts, two jerseys, her acclaimed 1979 book of essays. Outside of writing, Didion was an unofficial style icon (even at age 80, she starred in a Céline ad campaign, modelling a pair of oversized sunglasses for the French luxury label). Her fashion sensibility was much like her prose: elegant, minimal, feminine and sharp. In 2022, Didion's own pair of Céline tortoiseshell sunnies fetched $40,000 when they were auctioned off from her estate. Didion has been posthumously canonised as a fashion heroine, not for the items she wore, per se, but for the way she chose them; with pragmatism, instinct and intention. Just as they are in her writing, clothes serve as more than objects. They are symbols; emblems that point towards something deeper. “Style is character,” Didion told in 1978, “your style your sensibility”.
