Cool Older Women Have This One Trait in Common

Actually, it's more like a superpower.

By
Published December 24, 2025
AARP (From left: Getty Images for Turner; Getty Images for Diane Gilman; Variety via Getty Images; Getty Images, 3)

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When Diane Keaton died last October, I played the last scene of First Wives Club on repeat. You know, the scene where Keaton, Bette Midler and Goldie Hawn — dressed in all white — dance their way from the party room out into the street while singing Lesley Gore’s hit, “You Don’t Own Me.”

That film turns 30 in 2026. That song, written in 1963 about civil rights, is an anthem to the Superpower of Personal Autonomy: “You don’t own me, don’t try to change me in any way ... don’t tell me what to do, don’t tell me what to say … just let me be myself, that’s all I ask of you.”

That song could also be a tribute to Diane Keaton, the incredible, unconventional star who made it cool to be awkward — and cool, at every age.

If your brand of cool is to Botox yourself like a reality TV star, consider how Keaton lived her life on her own terms — defying convention to remain natural-looking, untethered by marriage and 100 percent herself.

That is cool, according to a recent study of 6,000 people in several countries. The study found that “cool” is recognized worldwide as something people want to be — and it’s not the same as “good” or “trendy” or “beautiful.”

“Cool” people tend to exhibit six traits, according to Todd Pezzuti, a professor in Chile who helped conduct the study:

“They are outgoing and social. They seek pleasure and enjoyment. They take risks and try new things. They are curious and open to new experiences. They have influence or charisma. And perhaps most of all, they do things their own way.”

That last trait — personal autonomy — is the real superpower of cool people.

“Society needs cool people because they challenge norms, inspire change and advance culture,” said Pezzuti. “Coolness is not about being famous or rich. It’s about how you live. Are you curious? Courageous? True to yourself? If so, chances are someone out there thinks you’re cool — no matter where you’re from.”

And no matter how old you are.

Fashion designer Diane Gilman is 80 — and she’s one of the coolest people I know. She has been cool since she was a toddler using crayons to draw stick figures in triangle-shaped dresses. She later sold A-line dresses to Cher.

Gilman revolutionized the blue-jean industry in 2008 with her stretchy DG2 jeans for midlife bodies on HSN.

“Cool girls need cool jeans,” the “Jean Queen” told me a few years ago, while we were writing her memoir, Too Young to Be Old. She now has a podcast of the same name, full of advice on how to be forever cool.

Gilman stitched embellished jeans for cool icons Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Grace Slick. She’s got a big mane of white hair and a fondness for mixing pricey designer blazers with her affordable DG2 jeans.

“What makes a woman cool?” Gilman pondered. “Authenticity, gratitude, joy and living your life with purpose. ‘Cool’ is something you are — how naturally your personal lens interprets the world around you. ‘Cool’ is an innate, born with it, forever thing.”

Her own inspiring Queens of Cool include Keaton, Meryl Streep, Jane Fonda, Sarah Jessica Parker, Helen Mirren — “women who don’t deny their age but don’t give in to it.”

These women all seem to have that Superpower of Personal Autonomy — although Fonda admits it took her a long time to grab hers.

“When I was about to turn 60, I realized that I was approaching my third act — my final act — and that it wasn’t a dress rehearsal,” Fonda, who turned 88 in December, told Glamour magazine in 2022. She reviewed her life, her decisions and her tendency to please men, and then moved forward into her most powerful — and cool — act yet: being totally herself.

Fonda is now braver than she’s ever been, a far cry from her “shy” younger self.

Keep in mind: cool people who appear to be extroverted may actually be quiet souls who save the display for the stage. Edgy and powerful, Bruce Springsteen describes himself as introverted — although his stage persona “is pretty alpha-male, which is a little ironic, because that was personally never exactly really me,” he told NPR’s Terry Gross in 2016.

What looks cool? A signature style. Note that Diane Keaton’s look was quite defined — all black or all white, long sleeves, layers, big belt, hat — even while her personality appeared haphazard. This dichotomy added to her cool.

“She turned hesitation into style and self-doubt into art,” the staff at the jewelry brand Waxing Poetic, which specializes in the big crosses and chains Keaton favored, wrote on Facebook when she died.

Elegance can be cool. Fred Astaire and Josephine Baker were cool. Miles Davis recorded “Birth of The Cool” in 1957 — and the jazz great said he never left his house without looking “sharp as a tack.”

Of course, being an authentic nerd can be quite cool, too — just ask Jeff Hiller, who recently won an Emmy for playing the pure and authentic Joel in Somebody Somewhere.

And me. I’m an authentic nerd — and I’ve been owning it since I was in the eighth grade and my science teacher called me “sleepyhead.” I was a top student and far from sleepy, but she didn’t understand me because I am an introvert. I remember sitting at my desk and telling myself: “You’re as smart as anybody else. Speak up.”

I showed the world what I knew I was: a confident girl who followed the rules most of the time — but rebelled at any sign of injustice. Three years later, at 15, I got my first newspaper job.

Hey, science teacher, you don’t own me.

I decided to stand out in my style choices, too, determined not to fade into the background. Like Keaton, who wore two linen skirts to pick up her best-actress Oscar for 1977’s Annie Hall, I love to layer. My go-to staples: cinched vests with flowy maxi skirts and my Frye boots from 1984.

So, what’s not cool? Comparing yourself to anyone else, caring too much about what other people think, twisting yourself in a knot to please other people or “floating like a leaf through life,” as Fonda has said.

And which Jane is the coolest of all? Journalist Sarah Green Carmichael shared her choice shortly after Jane Goodall, the renowned chimpanzee expert and conservationist, passed away on October 1.

“Jane Goodall is the coolest person I’ve ever interviewed, and I’ve interviewed hundreds of people,” said Carmichael, editor at Bloomberg Opinion.

Why? Goodall practiced the Superpower of Personal Autonomy — she knew her purpose on this planet, and she acted on it.

A Netflix interview with Goodall, “Famous Last Words” — which she filmed in March 2025, knowing it would be released after her death — is a tutorial on how to be cool. In it, she leaves a final message:

“I want to make sure that you all understand that each and every one of you has a role to play,” Goodall said. “Your life matters, and you are here for a reason … every single day you live, you make a difference in the world, and you get to choose the difference that you make.”

You choose. That’s what makes you cool. As Diane Keaton (or Annie Hall) might say: La dee da, la dee da, la la …

 Which older woman do YOU really look up to? Let us know in the comments below.

Jan Tuckwood is an award-winning journalist who was associate editor and revenue content director of The Palm Beach Post for 30 years. She’s also a former fashion editor of The Denver Post, and her work has appeared in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post and Glamour magazine, among other publications. She is the editor of five books, including the official history book of Palm Beach County, and she is the co-author of Too Young to Be Old, the 2022 memoir of Diane Gilman, HSN’s “Jean Queen.”