Catherine Zeta-Jones reminds us that there are no rules when it comes to ageless glamour

Catherine Zeta-Jones has a truly impressive wardrobe. Hers is cavernous, much like a designer boutique and filled with bespoke floor-to-ceiling display cabinets.

I know all of this because of Instagram. I’d like to imagine that the Oscar-winning Welsh actress has spent her stay-at-home time during the pandemic holed up in hers, entertaining herself via catwalk parades such as the one she posted on social media this week. It’s the ultimate dressing up box; perhaps she has been plotting all the outfits she wants to wear, in which order, when life finally goes back to normal.

“When in doubt, turn your closet into a runway,” the 51 year-old posted. Madonna’s Vogue played as she dressed up in a maxi dress, then striped trousers, and danced down the aisles.

A previous ‘zoom around’ her wardrobe in 2017 showed a vast collection of colourful Hermes and Chanel bags, next to a wall of printed silk scarves and an entire section devoted to storing twenty-plus black, navy and marl jackets, with a section of boucle (mostly Chanel) box jackets below.

Zeta-Jones, clearly, loves fashion. Yet what I personally admire about her is that she has never been one to chase the trends, nor take it all too seriously.

It is rare in Hollywood to find an actress who cannot be coaxed into wearing things that don’t suit them, or that a professional stylist has told them is au courant, and will make them appear fashion-forward.

Zeta-Jones swerves a lot of styles that aren’t to her taste. She unapologetically likes sparkle (sequins and rhinestones feature a lot in her red carpet wardrobe) and black lace. There is a specific off-the-shoulder bodice cut, with a thigh-high slit skirt that she returns to time and again, re-done for her by Dolce & Gabbana or Zuhair Murad.

Her daywear is just as glam as the eveningwear. Silk satin blouses, pussy bows, pencil skirts and sharply cut décolletage-baring tops are all for every day in her book. A picture of her from 2019, in New York with her then-16-year-old daughter Carys Zeta Douglas, is a perfect example; the teenager is in jeans, the woman in a hyper-feminine Michael Kors tea dress.

Zeta-Jones is the daughter of a Swansea seamstress, and often has spoken of how much she admired Elizabeth Taylor growing up. She appreciates quality cuts, and collects vintage dresses - all of her own red carpet dresses are stored in an immaculate archive, to the dismay of Michael Douglas, her husband of 21 years. "My husband calls me a high-class hoarder," she said.

Her interest in glamour has been a defining feature since she first appeared on screen in 1991's The Darling Buds of May, via her cracking Hollywood in The Mask of Zorro, Chicago, Entrapment and more.

There is a supposedly less-glam side that we don't get to see as much - and even that sounds fun to be around.

"Hollywood is, I know, glamour, and all that stuff," she said in a recent interview. "And I have that, like, oozing from me. I would walk around in a pair of high mules and a bejewelled robe all day long, but I don’t."

She was talking about the range of pretty ballet flats with memory foam comfort that she designed in collaboration with Butterfly Twists, after "one blister too many".

The journalist Jonathan Van Meter wrote in his recent Vulture profile of Renée Zellweger that; “Catherine Zeta-Jones and Zellweger and I would eventually all have dinner in Manhattan... Zeta-Jones showed up late in a leather trench coat and a cloud of perfume and ordered a rare steak and Champagne. Zellweger arrived very early - in her running clothes - and ate steamed spinach.”

That quote, to me, says a lot about the different schools of thought around what's glamorous in Hollywood today. Zeta-Jones is someone who clearly is enjoying expressing herself, wearing and doing whatever she wants. I'm with her; I'd personally take the steak, any day.

For more news, analysis and advice from The Telegraph's fashion desk, click here to sign up to get our weekly newsletter, straight to your inbox every Friday. Follow our Instagram @Telegraphfashion