In 2019, Hollywood actor and fitness icon Jane Fonda bought herself a flaming red coat, and declared it was going to be the last garment she ever buys. Interestingly, the red coat wasn’t bought without reason either. In October that year, she joined hands with Greanpeace and other allied movements, and moved to Washington DC, to stage a weekly protest against the Trump government’s stand on climate. These Fire Drill Fridays were inspired by Greta Thunberg’s call to ‘act like our house is on fire’. Fonda wanted her fire-engine red coat to become a symbol of these Fire Drill Fridays, which it did as she turned up at Capitol Hill, wearing it and getting arrested in it, week after week, at least five times, including on her 82nd birthday.
In November 2019, Fonda defied all red-carpet rules by wearing a black sequined suit, twice, within a span of three days! First, to the Glamour Women of the Year Awards, and then, at the EmPower Party of the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Power & Potential (GCAPP), of which she is Founder Chairman. In fact, that wasn’t the first time those sequined pants had been to an EmPower Party. She’d teamed them (minus the blazer) with a black top, to the 2018 edition of the same.
At the Academy Awards 2020, Fonda gave a second red carpet outing to a dazzling red Elie Saab she’d first worn at Cannes in 2014. But this time, she accessorized it with her Fire Drill coat. If that isn’t fierce!
Keeping the streak going, this year, Fonda turned up at the Golden Globes, to collect her Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement, in a white suit that’s at least 25 years old. She was first seen wearing it in public, at an awards show in 1996. Here’s hoping celebs closer home take a leaf out of her fashion guide and make the red carpet just a little bit green!
