What Makes A Style Icon

Of course, the term 'style icon' is pretty subjective – 'style' means different things to each of us, and the people who we consider to be the greatest proponents of style may shift and change just as we ourselves do. Obviously, there are people in every period of history who are considered to be 'style icons'; Coco Chanel, Jacquie Kennedy and Audrey Hepburn all leap to mind, but when I personally think of those who I consider to be innately stylish and worthy of the term 'style icon', the list is perhaps a little different.

To me, a style icon is somebody who just glows. It’s not all about what they wear, but rather how they wear it, and how they move through life. Head held high, eyes sparkling, a true style icon possesses an innate special ‘something’ that is theirs alone.

And so I give you, in no particular order, the people who I think shine as paragons of style.

Firstly, like every female artists' model in the known universe, I must confess to a particular love of Isadora Duncan. A dancer, actress, poet and muse, this woman just oozed life, embracing all it’s tragedy and passion. Those who knew her described her as "an adventurer, a revolutionary, and ardent defender of the poetic spirit", Isadora pioneered a new and daring kind of freedom in dance, as well as being a central pivot in the Bohemian culture that was blossoming in Montparnasse after World War 1. Isadora died in 1927 when out riding in the convertible of one of her many beaux and the long chiffon scarf she was wearing got caught in the wheels of the car breaking her neck. Many would comment that she had somehow managed to ensure that her death was just as theatrical, dramatic and visually startling as her life. A true exponent of the ideals of Bohemian culture, she lives on in the hearts of dancers, actresses, poets and muses the world over.

David Bowie. As far as I'm concerned, this man is just the epitome of male style and grace.  From the early seventies to the present day, he has set and personified trends in equal measure, (and is even credited with starting the fashion for the 'mullet' hair do, back in the 70's, for which we can certainly forgive him). Always debonair, always beautifully turned out, and by all accounts, an absolute dream to deal with. I can think of no other enduringly popular music star who seems to be able to drift from decade to decade looking so up-to-the-minute chic without being tragic, in the way that Bowie can. Quite the Renaissance man, as well as singing, Bowie acts, writes and produces visual art, while still having found time to give the world Major Tom, Ziggy Stardust, Halloween Jack, and The Thin White Duke. 

The Rule of Kates. There just seems to be something about women called Kate.  Kate Hudson, Katherine Hepburn and Cate Blanchett; what a trio of style divas. 

Katherine Hepburn, while not traditionally pretty, had a certain style all her own – a kind of 'un-glamorous' glamour. With her beautifully tailored, mannish suits and distinctively textured voice, not to mention an air of pride and a certain unfathomable mixture of frank candour and personal modesty, Miss Hepburn remains one of the great icons of mid-twentieth century style.

Cate Blanchett is another woman who, while perhaps not traditionally beautiful, shines with a kind of glamour and luminosity that is unmistakably hers alone. I've always been a bit of a sucker for an entertainment awards ceremony – it’s the formal wear and the speeches – but often find myself feeling a little disappointed – it's the formal wear and the speeches. So many gorgeous starlets waste the biggest fashion opportunities of the year; the Oscars, Golden Globes, Emmys and even our own humble Logies; by wearing dresses that are ill-fitting, ill-mannered, ill-advised or almost any other adjective that can have an 'ill' put in front of it!  Not so the divine Ms Blanchett. Immaculately dressed, stylish to a fault, and always knows exactly what is and isn’t appropriate in any given fashion situation. I kept a picture of her in the Valentino gown that she wore to the 2003 Golden Globes above my desk for about two years.

Next to the photo of Cate Blanchett, you would have found another of the gorgeous Kate Hudson, taken that very same night. Just beautiful. You hear of people who just seem to light up a room, and Kate Hudson is very definitely one of them. With her fresh, untainted look and eye for clothes that make her look even more willowy and lovely than she already is, this girl is a true style icon for the noughties, synonymous with her very own brand of effortlessly natural glamour.

While we're talking about natural glamour and women who really epitomise the best of contemporary style, we can't go past the ever-stunning Julianne Moore. With her beautiful alabaster skin and fine, fine features, she is truly luminous. If you’re as much of a sucker for period style films as I am, you’ll have noticed that some actresses don’t look particularly convincing – something about their look just anchors them firmly in the present, and no amount of makeup, clever costuming or ornate hairstyling can change it. Not so the lovely Julianne; she seems to fit effortlessly into the raiment of whichever period she happens to be passing through. There is a certain timelessness about her, which is born, not made.

Snow White. Now, I know what you’re thinking – Sacha's tapped in the head, but hear me out. As a child I was taken to see the Disney adaptation of this timeless children’s classic, and I was HOOKED. I think I was about four when I decided that Snow White was my own personal style icon, and I’ve never looked back. Black hair, fair skin, red lips, she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. And she was a gracious houseguest, too. I used to spend hours gazing into my grandmother’s dressing table set mirror, just willing it to talk back to me.

But what of the style icons that are more close to our hearts, the ones who we get to experience close up. The people that really shape our ideas about what it is to be stylish and fashionable. The style icons who we truly know and love. Bronny's is her glamorous grandmother, and I’d love to hear who yours is.

Let me tell you about mine.

The most enduring and far reaching of all my personal style icons was somebody who was not famous, nor did she ever hope to be, but she taught me more about style and personal glamour than anybody else ever could. My great aunt, Miss Dorothy Jean Baker. 

God, how I loved her. She was my father’s spinster aunt, and she was a true lady. She never left the house without red lipstick (the old-fashioned, wax based kind - I can smell it now), and the scent of Cyclax Milk of Roses eddying around her. We used to watch the ballroom dancing on TV, because it reminded her of the innumerable wartime dance competitions that she participated in, and she would complain about the modern trend for dancers to look over their partner’s shoulders. "In my day" she’d say, "you had to look into your partners eyes, or you lost points."  She was also sorry that modern dancers no longer had their heels chalked, to ensure that they never scraped the floor.  She had been an ultra fashionable young woman, and I used to spend hours poring over pictures of her at her 21st birthday party, dressed as a powder puff. But then, I would also have to say that, well dressed though she was, it was far more than her clothes which made her stylish.

Jean gave me my very first chiffon scarf when I was nine, as a get well present during one of my everlasting bouts of childhood asthma. A relic from the 1920's, she pulled it out of an old cardboard box that, to my childish nose, smelled of the mysterious adventures of her girlhood. Every Christmas she presented  me with an enamel pendant and a Yardley gift pack, first Lily Of The Valley (because that was an appropriate scent for little girls, then I graduated up to Violet, and ultimately when I was about eleven, the Holy Grail of the Yardley line – Rose. And I was in heaven, because I smelled like her. She taught me the importance of matching your handbag to your shoes, and the difference between being graceful and gracious, and how one won’t do without the other.

Today is Jean's birthday, and I miss her with a longing so fierce that it is almost unbearable. Though she passed away in 1990 (almost half my lifetime ago), her legacy lives on every time I put on my red lipstick, adorn myself with floral chiffon or silk flowers, or even smell a rose.

A style icon indeed.