What Diane Keaton meant to me…

The story in the Times (here) on DK’s idiosyncratic style of dress suggests that all those layers of buttoned blouses, blazers, turtle-necks, the wire-rimmed glasses, and always – the gloves, were emblematic of the confused (is that what “gracefully puzzled” means?), outgoing, emboldened modern woman. The suggestion is that women both imitated and were dazzled by DK’s style:

“Her throwaway verbal style and her thrown-together dress style became symbols of the free, friendly, gracefully puzzled young women who were busy creating identities out of the epic miscellany of materials swirling in the American cultural centrifuge," rhapsodized Jack Kroll, Newsweek's film critic at the time.
Her fashion influence in those days should not be underestimated, Mr. Talley [of Vogue magazine] said last week. "What Sarah Jessica Parker is to young women today, Diane Keaton was in that day," he said.

I wont waste time explaining why I think these statements are ludicrous, but let me just say that I wont ever admit to having had Keaton as a symbol of anything except a mildly crazed, sometimes quirky and amusing, most often not, character in movies that may have caused a ripple of chuckles, but only if you were in a room full of people who were under the influence of controlled substances.

The article does punch her out a bit for the glove thing (note suggestive comparison to creepy Michael Jackson):

Then there are the gloves, sheathing Ms. Keaton's slender hands wherever she goes (reminding fans with a more twisted turn of mind a bit of Michael Jackson). She wore gloves with her Woodyesque sport coat, and once again in Beverly Hills at the Oscar nominees' luncheon on Feb. 9. Leather gloves covered her wrists at the International Film Festival in Berlin a few days before that, a counterpoint to the black-and-white-checkered coat she wore. White leather gloves provided the creamy finish to the ivory-colored suit Ms. Keaton wore two weeks ago on "The Tonight Show." And white satin gloves accented her Richard Tyler coat at the Golden Globes Awards in January.
Her near fetishistic devotion to those gloves has inevitably prompted queries. Is she making a style statement, or is she simply hiding a pair of hands she deems too unsightly for a close-up?
Ms. Keaton, who declined to be interviewed for this article — because she is talked out, a publicist said — did nothing herself to clear up the mystery.

Well now, maybe we should leave her alone with her mittens. Whatever her reasons, they can’t be anything but sad. Warped, gnarled knuckles, scaly spotted skin, or a perennial nail biting problem – let’s not let our curiosity force some prankster to rip off her armor and zero in the camera. As I once wrote, the presence of some mystery is a good thing and, often as not, the fact of mystery is more interesting than the undisclosed reality.