Winona Winona… and Winona

A name you can say three times. A name you want to say more than three times. A name you want to say forever. A name we’ve been saying for almost 40 years because that’s how long Winona Ryder has been famous – almost 40 years.

If you’re old enough, that is. And I’m happy to be old enough to be able to say that I have loved Winona Ryder from the beginning, from Lucas in 1986 when she wore her hair in basically the same hairstyle she would return to in Reality Bites in 1994. And while there’s a whole generation who only knows Winona from a decade of Stranger Things (!!!) and for whom, perhaps, Millie Bobby Brown might be their version of Winona one day, these times are not like those times. Pop culture is so fractured and so fast right now, it’s harder and harder, in my opinion, for a celebrity to really take hold of your heart and stay there, permanently. This is what Winona Ryder represents for those of us who’ve been around before Netflix became television. She is and always will be FOREVER. 

As she says in her new cover interview for Harper’s Bazaar: 

“Everyone uses [the word icon] now, and they don’t know what a real icon is.”

Well, she is. An icon. And she’s returning to one of her most iconic roles this summer in the long-awaited Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, which is why she’s doing magazines and likely more. We’re getting a Winona Ryder press tour, everyone. Starting with this profile of a teen star who’s now in her 50s, and we all know she’s been through it. But she’s good, she’s really good, which is all I need to know. There’s nothing super new in this piece that you wouldn’t know if you hadn’t already known about her and, perhaps more importantly, there’s a lot that we actually don’t know and she’s not about to tell us. And I don’t just mean gossip or whatever but, like, her life. 

She’s not on social media, she’ll never be on social media. She talks about going viral on social media after Kendall Jenner wore that Givenchy dress at the Met Gala and said she was the first to do it, at which point people online pointed out that Winona had in a magazine shoot; followed by all kinds of clarifications about whether or not Winona had worn a duplicate and not the original. Her response: 

“I heard about that. I do remember that photo shoot. It was with my dear friend [and makeup artist] Kevyn Aucoin. And I did wear it. I have pictures. The photographer gave me some prints. I’m in a tartan in one of them, and I’m in that dress.”

Anyone else would have dropped everything to rush home and dig through boxes to find that print and post it. Winona doesn’t have to. The photographer did. 

Meanwhile I’m sitting here wondering about all the other prints and letters and collectibles that Winona has stored away somewhere that could give us a century’s worth of internet breaking Throwback Thursdays but she will never, ever, ever, as much as we wish she would, but also not, because that just wouldn’t be her style. 

Speaking of style though… she has never not had it. This Harper’s photo shoot brings out the best of the Winona Ryder look, starting with the cover. 

And in grey Louis Vuitton… 

And also Chanel: 

My GOD, that f-cking face. And this HAIRSTYLE. Those eyes. No matter what and no matter when, her eyes are the time machine. They can keep you here, they can take you back, they can move you forward. These were the eyes that brought Lydia Deetz to life. These are the eyes that are bringing Lydia Deetz home again after all these years. His name is on the billboard, of course Beetlejuice is the star. But it only worked because Lydia was the soul. 

Click here for more of Winona in Harper's.