For the first time in forever, the standout dressers of this year’s award season have been almost exclusively men. And that’s not to say that recent red carpets have been so dull or full of misfires that we’ve all started to crave the missionary embrace of a plain black tux.
It’s been a glowing award season; the looks have been delectable across the board. We’ve had Ayo Edebiri in a leather, ballooning Louis Vuitton gown, Aubrey Plaza in Post It-esque Loewe and Taylor Swift in glittering green Gucci, on top of countless stunning Schiaparelli creations.
There’s been viral moment after viral moment, all the cinched waists and sculptured bodices and niche Barbie references you could hope for, and yet the most memorable looks have come from a select group of particularly well dressed men.
Pedro Pascal in his peculiar polka dot turtleneck, looking like the chic version of an inside-out sock, his right arm nestled into a puzzling sling. Barry Keoghan with his Tiffany & Co. pearls and permanently exposed arms. Jeremy Allen White opting for a sheer shirt beneath his all-black Calvin Klein suit. Colman Domingo in layers and layers of Valentino luxury, shirt open, mustard suit crisp as can be, a gold lamé coat draped across his shoulders. You’ve got your four horsemen, so now you have no choice but to ask: are men going to overtake women in red carpet dressing?
“I definitely feel men are becoming more confident in what they’re wearing,” says celebrity stylist Jay Hines, who has styled Barry Keoghan, Mads Mikkelsen, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Josh O’Connor, Willem Dafoe, Matt Smith and Daniel Caesar. “A lot of straight men are diving into silhouettes they previously may have considered feminine. But a bit of gender fluidity with clients that may not be used to it introduces them to a world of different styles and silhouettes. I think once a lot of people see the clothes on them, the confidence starts to brew from there.”
The new playful androgyny surrounding menswear on the red carpet goes both ways: plenty of women have been spotted wearing suits or toying with more masculine tailoring at awards shows recently, from Boygenius in triple Thom Browne at the Grammys to Ayo Edebiri in Talking Heads-style oversized suits by The Row.
It feels as though something is shifting. Men are now pulling out all the stops typically required of women - tarting themselves up, showing a bit of skin, donning reems of jewellery or pops of colour - and women are, at points, comfortably taking the backseat. “Men are playing the game more,” says celebrity stylist Rudy Betty, who works predominantly in womenswear but is feeling a fresh pull towards menswear thanks to its increasingly unrestrictive opportunities. “There’s this higher consciousness of serving a look, of being more daring.”
Betty, whose clients include Lashana Lynch, Indiya Moore, Damson Idris and Dina Asher Smith, says that male celebrities are now pulling out all the stops that styling teams would have once employed for women if they wanted to “make them a star”. “Before, it was kind of expected for female talents to have a whole clan working on their appearances and trying to make a sartorial moment. Male talents have [those] teams now and are more ready and willing to play around with it.
“The visual image and aesthetic for these men [Allen White, Keoghan etc] is very strong. People are looking forward to what they wear, it becomes an event, whereas before that was restricted to women.”
He gives the recent Dune press tour, with Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Florence Pugh and Austin Butler all in tow, as an example. “You’re looking forward to what they’re all going to wear, whereas before it was just the women,” he says, adding: “I've seen somewhere people calling them the Fab Four, because everybody had such a distinct look.”
Hines agrees: “I think a lot of actors are really stepping into that understanding of stardom. They’re thinking, ‘I need to look like a star with the look I’m wearing.’ It doesn’t mean that they need to be loud or wearing feathers on their head, but now [they want] to stand out and be the pioneers of men’s fashion.”
Betty credits increasingly gender fluid fashion shows in helping bring this wave of experimentation onto the red carpet. “Gucci by Alessandro Michele was almost a pioneer of this - it’s been done, of course, in the early 2000s by Helmut Lang. But in recent years, it’s the fact that womenswear and menswear silhouettes have been shown in the same fashion show that has helped to open up the optics.”
And with each passing awards ceremony, us gawking onlookers are lapping it up. Now that anyone and everyone has a stylist, it’s harder to stand out as a woman on the red carpet. You don’t get as many car crashes, and so the winners and losers become unclear. Leading ladies are as likely to wow a red carpet crowd as a random online influencer. But the leading men are standing clear and defined. “Womenswear always feels like the showstopper, but when menswear is done correctly, it may be a little bit different to what people are used to,” Hines explains of our fresh appetite for menswear.
Choice paralysis can make even the most stunning of gowns feel overdone, but the bar has been so low for men for so long, we’re welcoming this new tide of innovation. And with the BAFTAs right around the corner, it’s the boys we’ll be looking to on arrival. Here’s hoping they pull out all the stops.
