While the majority of Hollywood relies on a select handful of publicists to procure the same five designers for their red carpet events, Carrie Fisher did it like she did everything: by her damn self. It must have been funny to her to have been such an icon of the silver screen, and also a writer in a world that tends to Hollywoodize even the most unglamorous and solitary of professions, which is how we get, say, Meryl Streep playing Susan Orlean as immaculate and intellectual and in crisp white shirts to match the garden of freakin’ oleanders around her like a halo.
Carrie Fisher wasn’t like that! She dressed for the part of herself exclusively, and it was wonderful. Her best accessory was Gary, her little dog with the uncontrollably wagging tongue, whom she toted everywhere, including late-night appearances—he wasn’t just her best friend, he was her therapy dog, too, a reminder of her fallibility and of our own. But also, his presence was a reminder of the way she consistently bucked convention; at Cannes in May, for instance, she not only flouted its notoriously sexist high-heel mandate for women by donning oxfords and a sensible tweed with a tulip skirt, she doubled down with Gary (and Fisher Stevens, who co-directed her Debbie Reynolds documentary) getting comfortable on the carpet. The French surely blanched; I hope Gary shed a little.
Fisher’s own writerly looks were generally quirky-sensible with a bit of glam; at the New York Film Festival, she paired eggplant with eggplant, a long scarf and fur atop that; at ComicCon in August, her snake-print cardigan added brightness to sleek black, and her embellished sneakers were a chic topper—they could have been Prada, or Dior, or Donna Karan, or Christopher Kane.