We might ooh and ahh over red carpet photos of celebrities, but rarely do we think, ‘Wow, they’ve got such great style’. Yes they look glamorous, but their fashion sense gets a little bit lost in translation with all the big dresses and big hairstyles.
Of course, there are exceptions – women who, whether they’ve just got off an airplane or arrived at the Vanity Fair Oscars party, always look 100% themselves, personal style in full shine mode. Enter Lisa Bonet, the actor whose wardrobe is ripe for fresh celebration.
Last month, Bonet celebrated her 53rd birthday. Marking the occasion on Instagram, her daughter, Zoë Kravitz, posted an old baby photo, writing, 'she don't have instagram cuz she's cooler than all of us. happy birthday twin #mama.'
Bonet is the actor whose brand of no-muss-no-fuss glamour, coupled with her free-spirited off-duty style, is a world away from starlets trying to carve out ‘a look’ in the age of social media.
Let’s rewind to 1987. It’s the MTV Video Music Awards, and Bonet wore round sunglasses, a tasseled black bra and a leather jacket that slipped off her shoulders. Sure, red carpets were less formal in the 80s and 90s, with stars regularly turning up in cardigans and jeans instead of ball gowns, but Bonet still stood out as looking effortlessly cool – like she’d just rummaged through her wardrobe instead of agonising over outfits for hours.
In 1990, she attended June’s Earth Communication Conference in Malibu wearing a blossom-print dress, a fringed knit waistcoat (she was spotted wearing the very same one in 2014 over an olive-coloured boilersuit) and a leather cord necklace. It was the perfect blend of girl-next-door meets hippy, and a far cry from the cult of minimalism that would ultimately characterise the decade.
Fast-forward to 2000, and Bonet appeared at the premiere of High Fidelity, a film, incidentally, which has since been rebooted for television with her daughter as the lead.
Bonet chose a crushed velvet kimono, a garment that has become something of a signature, a sheer cheongsam-style dress, a pair of chocolate cowboy boots and a beaded purse. On anyone else, it would have looked like an ill-advised dive into a fancy dress box. On Bonet, with her smudged silver eyeshadow, it was red carpet gold.
Recent looks might be more typically ‘red carpet’, but they’re still served with a twist. To LA’s Games of Thrones premiere, Bonet wore a charcoal-coloured velvet gown with a red stone hanging from her septum piercing and a gold crescent moon crowning her half-up-half-down ‘do. Hair accessories seem to be a styling favourite.
She tucked a gold-and-blue fan into her bun for 2015’s Met Gala, and must be the only woman on the planet who can pull off a top hat.
Of course, it’s always a fertile fashion moment when Lisa Bonet and Zoë Kravitz appear side-by-side. At 2018’s Vanity Fair Oscars party, they arrived wearing a symphony of black – Kravitz in a puffball dress that exploded into feathers, and Bonet in a smocked and sheer-sleeved number.
At the InStyle Awards in 2013, they proved they were the coolest mother-daughter duo with their impressive collection of arm tattoos (snakes, arrows, symbols, you name it).
If you’re looking for an entry-point to looking as cool as Bonet, might we suggest a robe? She wore a amethyst-coloured kimono over a pleated black dress as part of her daughter’s wedding celebrations last year - and the effect was pure bohemian brilliance.