We don’t consider Jane Goodall as a style icon. But we should.
The style consists in having a awareness and lively control over how the world sees you, and understanding how you see the world – how to notice and answer all its little details. Dr. Goodall, who died this week at 91, was a master about this.
Dr. Goodall seized the vast power that lies in a prudent mutual observation: it sits patiently for months in the tropical forest of Tanzania, observing the chimpanzees, which first fled fear. Without being discouraged, she kept watching, aware that the chimpanzees were also looking at her. Finally, she acquired their confidence and plunged into their society, engaging in a sort of dialogue with them. This method of intense observation and respect has led to the simple but revolutionary discoveries of Dr. Goodall: that “animals, like us, have personalities, minds and emotions”, and that human beings were not the “culmination of creation” – which had been established wisdom for centuries – but “an animal like the others”.
This work brought Dr. Goodall due to celebrity, landing it on the coverage of National Geographic in 1965, where, at 31, it appeared in what was going to become her signature look: blond hair pulled in a low ponytail, a knee notebook and a uniform outfit of button and kaki shorts. In the photo, she is sitting, the naked legs leaned towards her chest, looking with a warm smile and committed not to the camera, but in a group of chimpanzees in the foreground. The message was clear: “Don’t look at me. Look at them. “
She was moving, that is to say how lookHow to take care of the natural world. She used her own style to reveal the hidden life of animals, to reveal that they also had style: individuality, identities, quirks and weaknesses.
Dr. Goodall had inaugurated a new type of intellectual glamor. She was the photogenic anthropologist. But fame came with advantages and traps. Although its appearance has attracted the funding of research, it also aroused a sexist criticism of reduction. As she explained to Alex Cooper on the podcast “call his dad”: “Some of the jealous male scientists would say:” Well, you know, she has just received this notoriety, and she receives geographic money. And they want it on the blanket, and they would not put it on the blanket if it did not have beautiful legs. So if someone said that today, it would be prosecuted, right? “”
She did not deny her attractiveness, but said that she had long understood how to use it in favor of science. “If my legs obtained money, thank you, my legs!” She exclaimed in the interview, joyfully slapping her thighs to emphasize. “And if you look at these covers, they were happy legs.”
In 2022, Mattel put to use the style and intellect combination of Dr. Goodall, publishing a Barbie by Jane Goodall as part of her series “Inspirant Women”. The doll represents her as she looked at it 60 years ago, with shorts, twins and horse tails. Dr. Goodall seemed delighted to be transformed into a classic fashion doll. She estimated that this would arouse an interest in science.
Dr. Goodall has clearly accepted his legs and the rest of his discreet and elegant appeal like tools with which to share her message – a bit like the tools she discovered that the chimpanzees used, upsetting the idea that the manufacturing of tools was practiced exclusively by human beings.
This approach was perfectly consistent with her organic vision of life in general: she has not seen any distinction between human and animal worlds.
Given her egalitarian point of view of nature, it is not surprising that Dr. Goodall has manifested little for fear of old age or death, which she saw not as a formidable end, but as another natural stage of life. “I always tell people that my next adventure will die,” she said in a recent interview. “Because either there is nothing, in this case, well, you don’t care, isn’t it? Or there is something. And if there is something – what I think – then I can’t think of a greater adventure than to discover what something is.”
This excitement and this curiosity about what comes then can explain why Dr. Goodall seemed almost unchanged by age. At 91, she looked, struck and worked a lot as she had always done, her enthusiasm and her commitment – to protect animals and the earth, to teach, to inspire others – not directed. The certainty that it belonged to the wider community of all living things seemed to grant it a calm radiation, encouraging others to pay attention to its message and it.
