In early November, notoriously nice movie star Keanu Reeves made some rare public appearances with Alexandra Grant, a 46-year-old artist, and apparently Reeves’ girlfriend. And the internet Lost Its Mind. But the commotion wasn’t just because of people’s strange, protective devotion to Keanu. Grant got attention for being 1. An “age-appropriate” woman (and not a 22-year-old model) 2. A person who chose to go in public with grey hair and a few visible wrinkles. The fact that her appearance caused such a stir raises interesting questions about the ever-evolving relationships between age, femininity, class, and beauty.
In episode two of Fashion Cats and Cocktails, Sara and Elise talk what it means to “look your age” — and how that idea isn’t separate from issues of race and class and other identity categories. They discuss what they find exciting about Alexandra Grant and her potential “it woman” status, and what parts of the hype are just the same old thing.
Useful Articles (Full List)
Keanu Reeves ‘hero’ for dating a woman his age by Elizabeth Di Filippo for Yahoo
If Keanu Reeves’s Date Can Embrace Looking Her Age, I Can Too by Ali Drucker for The New York Times
Keanu Reeves is dating a woman close to his own age. Why is that so shocking? By Aja Romano for Vox
‘Menocore’ Is as Much About Wealth as It Is About Age by Sara Tatyana Bernstein for Racked
‘I don’t need clothes anymore’: How Mature Women Fashion Their Lives by Sue Brower for Dismantle
Sorry Kids, the Next Cool Fashion Magazine Is for Women Over 40 by Shannon Barbour for The Cut
Face Value: Subversive Beauty Ideals in Contemporary Marketing by Maria Mackinney-Valentin for Fashion, Style, and Popular Culture Journal
Sara’s Pre-talk Reflections
First, it took me a long time to understand the Church of Keanu. I was raised on his late 80s/90s films, but always thought his main talent was being Keanu Reeves, which is enough maybe? I didn’t see The Matrix until 2013, so I kind of skipped over most of his career after My Own Private Idaho (1991). Now? He does seem like a good person based on…memes, but is that really the bar?
Anyway, I’m much more interested in Alexandra Grant possibly emerging as a style icon. I think it feels shocking right now to admire someone who looks visibly middle-aged. Maybe older women are having “a moment” (Big Little Lies, Shondaland, etc.) but those women on screen tend to look stretched and polished into a vaguely 35-year-old shape. As some of the articles we refer to note, part of the shock over Alexandra Grant comes from people literally having no idea what a person between 30 and 60 actually looks like.
Another exciting thing about this is, frankly, she’s about my age, which means Gen X which means one of us is being seen and admired for doing something kinda Gen X’y! Like, this seems like a very Gen X way to do middle age to me. So, in that sense, I’m on board.
A few other thoughts though….
- Her appearance doesn’t really expand the boundaries of acceptable beauty that much. She is thin, white, and wealthy. These boundaries already exist around appropriate aging. As a chubby woman with eczema and extremely precarious finances, I’m not sure I feel “freed” by Grant’s appearance like Ali Drucker did in her NYT op-ed.
- Except for a blip in the 1920s, the connection between fashion and youth is a boomer thing. Before that it was often middle-aged women (with money) who were most admired for their style. I wonder if, in these “Ok Boomer” times, ironically, youth obsession will ebb?
- There have also been several percolations of younger women emulating “older” style in the 21st century. I wrote about “Menocore” for Racked a couple years ago. And before that, several scholars noted the popularity of various forms “granny chic.” While there are certainly challenges to restrictive beauty norms in these styles, they also tend to favor rich and thin versions of age (possibly as aspirational fantasies). Even the revered “eccentric” Olds like Iris Apfel get to be that way because of their wealth.
Elise’s Pre-Talk Reflections
I feel like my gut reaction to all of this was pretty (maybe too?) cynical. I was like “What this woman doesn’t have wrinkles!!” And I didn’t see her hair as “natural,” but perfectly dyed and styled into long, sleek silvery waves. But then I read some of the articles and responses, and I softened my tune a bit. It IS pretty awesome that her presence made lots of others feel good and validated in non-normative, non hegemonic ways.
So I asked myself: is there any harm in celebrating an “old lady” look that to me, isn’t really challenging anything?
Not totally. As I said, I think it’s important that there’s a model of beauty like this out there. As Sara pointed out, these days the Hollywood women that fall into Grant’s age category (from 35-55) are all crafted to look like 35-year-olds. To have someone in that age range who doesn’t look like Leslie Mann (who I swear is drinking baby blood, because she looks younger every year) but is also in her late 40s walking the red carpet is pretty nice.
But considering that menocore-inspired ombre hairstyles aren’t yet going out of fashion, I don’t see her appearance as really pushing any boundaries. She is impeccably dressed and made up and perfectly illustrates Sara’s points about “middle-aged” fashion: the class and often racial implications of a “mature” look. Her skin is smooth and polished-looking, and I thought she could be anywhere from 30 to pushing 60.
There’s a weird thing going on with technology and age and fashion right now that creates a chance that we’ll all have a similar look across decades, which is a huge contrast to other time periods when it was most often MUCH easier to tell the difference between a 30-year-old and a 50-year old. Now celebrities like J-Lo and Gwen Stefani look like they’ve been preserved in some soft fuzzy bronzer and look almost exactly the same as they did 20 years ago (see https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/beauty-hair/celebrity-hair-makeup/g10385940/jennifer-lopez-age/).
On the other side of it, as Sara highlights in her menocore article, sometimes 29-yr-olds adopt a 45-year-old look. So what’s really going on to me is that a 40-something–Grant–reflects a style that 20-somethings are wearing…in an artsy, feminist kind of way. Is this different from what J-Lo is doing? I don’t know…but I think all of it is fun and offers more ways of being and existing in the world. It also makes room to close the “generation gap’ (see Sara’s revivals piece!!).
Discussion Questions
- How do considerations of race and class complicate the celebration of Grant as a feminist style icon?
- What are the key signifiers of “old lady”? How are technologies complicating or changing them?
- Similarly, what are the key signifiers of youth, and how — and why — are these shifting, if at all?
- What is the relationship between age and fashion in different historical contexts?
- How often do you guess someone’s “true” age? What factors play into how we perceive others’ age?
- What other “mature” style icons can you think of?
- Why do millennials love Keanu so much? Is it The Matrix? Are we in the matrix?