Jane Fonda Tells W Why She’s A Reluctant Fashion Icon

Yesterday, we were dying over the fab Atelier Versace look Jane Fonda donned in Cannes over the weekend, and the reign of Jane continues: The 77-year-old legend is on the cover of W’s June/July issue. Steven Meisel shot the actress with styling by W’s very own Edward Enninful and an interview with Lynn Hirschberg, where they talk fashion and resilience. “I think it’s a hoot that, at my age, people are calling me a fashion icon,” Fonda says wearing a Giambattista Valli Haute Couture dress and cape on the cover.  “Truthfully, my relationship to fashion has always been strained. When I was starting out as an actress in New York, I worked as a model because I needed to pay for acting classes. But I didn’t have what it took to be a model. I hated all the emphasis on how I looked, and I never paid much attention to clothes.” The Grace and Frankie star also gives some thought into why she’s still in the game in her senior years. “It’s called resilience,” she says. “And it’s a very mysterious thing. When I was first starting out, I’d go to auditions, and I knew so many of the gals. Half of them were far more beautiful than me, and the other half were far more talented, but none of those women made it. I’d wonder, Why did it happen for me and not them? Now I think it has to do with that core resilience.” She would know.

Jane at the premiere of Sea of Trees in a electric blue number from Atelier Versace Spring 2015.