Angelina Jolie is, perhaps, the ultimate Hollywood actress: Dignified in speech with a Hellenic beauty, but with an underlying pathos that evokes Louise Brooks, Pauline Starke, and Marilyn Monroe. Her performance in the Pablo Larraín-directed Maria Callas biopic—which Vogue’s Radhika Seth described as her greatest of all time and won her an eight-minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival—has seen her become an avatar for a resplendent strain of old-world composure otherwise lost to time.
“I chose not to copy [Maria’s] looks because they are hers, and her Venice carpets were stunning, so I gave a little nod to her—in a different way,” Jolie last week told Vogue of her own wardrobe. “But I made sure to wear something ladylike in her honor.” The actress spent most of her time dressed in Saint Laurent and Tom Ford dresses with Grecian-style sleeves that served as a subtle homage to the American-Greek soprano, before later wearing a knitted column at the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado cut from the most luxurious shade of cashmere with Roger Vivier’s buckled City pumps.
Blanket dressing can be as polished and decadent and sumptuous as a stole-topped Tamara Ralph gown—the draped chiffon number that Jolie this weekend wore to the premiere of Maria—but there’s perhaps something more vulnerable about the desire to swaddle oneself in ultra-soft yarns. It reminds me of Callas’s own relationship to clothing, which continues to inspire. “An armor,” as Vogue’s Liam Hess noted in an interview with Jolie, “that allowed her to step out into an at-times hostile world.”