With oversized sunglasses perched squarely on her nose and a simple black shirt snug on her slender frame, Joan Didion — yes, that Joan Didion, the esteemed 80-year-old literary icon — is sartorial perfection as the new face of Céline.

The octogenarian author of Slouching Towards Bethlehem, The White Album and The Year of Magical Thinking looks out-of-place in a major fashion campaign, and yet perfectly at home. She did model for Gap back in 1989, and was known for her effortless style in the 1970s.

“Just like the woman, this move is unapologetic, polarizing, provocative, genius,” says style expert and fashion journalist Susie Wall. “The great irony here is that in this youth-driven age of Kimye-style cause célébre and (often) undeserved add-water-and-stir stardom — it is actually social media that has opened the window to allow a figure like Didion to fly.”

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But Toronto fashion blogger Julio Reyes was still surprised. “Céline usually does a little more out-of-the-box concepts with their ads,” says the founder of Fashionights. “This time around… I had to do a double-take.”

And rightly so: It’s not often a grey-haired American writer, who Vogue dubbed an “immortal intellectual-and-otherwise dream girl,” is the face of a fashion house.

“I loved it. I wanted to applaud the fact that it was an older woman,” says Michelle Bilodeau, digital and special projects editor at The Kit. “(Model) Daria Werbowy is usually the face of Céline, so it was quite a departure.”

“Joan Didion taking front-and-centre in a major fashion campaign is a huge, huge statement that fashion is for everyone,” notes writer Anne T. Donahue, who recently wrote about the campaign for Fashion magazine. “You get to interpret your own personal style for as long as you want. It isn’t just for models and actresses.”

And it may be part of a larger trend in the fashion world. Reyes notes the “no-makeup” look pervading modern style, while Donahue cites labels like Dolce & Gabbana and Lanvin enlisting older women for their collections.

Makeup campaigns have followed suit, adds Bilodeau, with 54-year-old Tilda Swinton as a 2014 face for Nars and Brooke Shields, 49, as a recent celebrity collaborator with MAC.

“I think fashion is taking more of a real view on what society is right now,” Reyes says.

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