This week’s Oscars contest is the most open it’s been in years. But for a leading man in Hollywood, there’s another rivalry that begins long before he steps inside the Dolby Theatre. The red carpet has lately become a sartorial battleground for male actors, with a lucrative top spot on the best-dressed lists almost as important as bagging an actual gong – something Hollywood’s female screen stars already know well.
This past 12 months has seen a crop of famous men turn heads for their personal style as much as their award-winning performances, and they are garnering unprecedented attention online. The world’s major fashion and luxury brands are thrilled to have a herd of clothes-stallions for their exuberant menswear, which they will pay them handsomely to wear.
“Seeing people be their true selves is so refreshing… people seem to be more confident than ever when getting dressed,” says the New York-based designer Thom Browne. He dressed Adrien Brody for his Golden Globe win for The Brutalist in January, describing the three-piece suit and oversized serpentine brooch as “classic… timeless… and really good-looking”. The last time he was nominated, back in 2003 for The Pianist, Brody wore a nondescript suit and tie – much like most of his peers then. Times have changed.
Another leading man currently leaning into his sense of style is Colman Domingo. At the peak of his 30-plus year career on stage and screen, this workhorse of an actor receives his second successive best actor Oscar nomination for prison drama Sing Sing. Colman’s sartorial choices are as daring as they are dashing: he can pull off any colour on the spectrum, from fuchsia to emerald and mustard; wild, baroque pattern is used judiciously (Versace, at this year’s Baftas); when he wears a cape (last year’s Met Gala) it doesn’t wear him; and the jewellery always blends, never boasts.
With the LA-based stylist duo Wayman and Micah by his side, he has the world’s most sought-after brands, from Valentino to Jacquemus, clamouring to dress him.
“I could look at a month of Colman’s looks and it’s like an album where you’re not skipping a song,” enthuses Mike Amiri, the namesake designer of white-hot tailoring brand Amiri, which will have 29 stores around the world by the end of this year. Amiri dressed Domingo for the London Film Critics’ Circle Awards last month in a merlot-coloured leather blazer with a brown satin shirt and yellow tie, boot-cut trousers and metallic-heeled boots. The look had only just appeared at the brand’s runway show in Paris one week earlier and it won’t be available until the autumn.
Los Angeles native Amiri has dressed many a rock star and rapper before but Hollywood, which is notoriously hard to crack without handing over a big cheque for a red carpet appearance, is embracing his fresh take on tailoring which nods to the cuts of the ’70s and prides itself on the kind of luxurious fabrics and expert craftsmanship you find in Italy and France. At the Golden Globes Jeff Goldblum wore a mint green double-breasted Amiri jacket with a dégradé crystal pinstripe, paired with a western bow tie and flares.
“It’s finding a sweet spot where the embellishment is not outlandish,” Amiri says. “I look at dressing people in that kind of a way as a painter [does]. It’s not how much you do, it’s knowing when to stop and having that refinement to take that person just where they need to be… The last thing you want is someone special to look like he’s standing with six other penguins.”
The red carpet game for men has heated up in recent years as the multi-billion pound fashion brands including Prada, Dior, Gucci and Saint Laurent sign up the male stars of the moment to wear head-to-toe looks at premieres, film festivals, the Met and the Academy Museum Galas, and most important of all, the awards ceremonies which take place between January and March.
At the major talent agencies such as CAA and UTA it is the norm now to find an in-house rep whose sole responsibility is to broker campaign deals and red carpet contracts with the big fashion, watch and jewellery houses. Anecdotally, the highest I have heard a brand will pay a male actor is $250,000 for a single red carpet appearance. But the return on investment goes beyond sales.
“When a celebrity wears a look on the red carpet, it’s not about driving sales – it’s about building brand equity and shaping associations that offer a competitive edge,” says Alison Bringé, CMO of London-based Launchmetrics, which quantifies the impact of a red carpet appearance in the form of its Media Impact Value (MIV), a metric devised using a proprietary algorithm which aggregates every social media post and article in which a particular look is published, quantifying the engagement around it. “By understanding how these moments resonate, brands can benchmark against competitors and identify the right talent for future strategies,” Bringé adds.
With so much riding on red carpet moments, the brands who can afford it are reinvesting heavily in in-house “custom studios”, charged with creating unique looks for their contracted talent. And this is where the stylists come in.
As a de facto guardian of an actor’s image, a bespoke look will often start in the hands of the stylist in the form of an idea on a mood board. After a conversation with the studio, invariably on Zoom since the world’s top stylists tend to live in LA, New York and London and the major brands’ studios are largely in Milan and Paris, an annotated sketch of the look by the studio designer kicks off a back and forth until both sides are happy with a design. The creative directors of a brand can get involved in final fittings (again, often on Zoom) but involvement tends to come at the end, if at all.
Once an actor reaches a certain level of recognisability or lands a role in a festival-buzzy film or TV show his publicist will recommend hiring a stylist. Since everybody, including stylists, want to land the “next big thing”, within a stylist’s roster you will often see a variety of proven stars alongside promising actors you’ve not yet heard of. Regardless of their wealth or experience, the talent almost never pays their stylist. (They do, however, pay agents and managers a hefty 10 per cent of their income each and a monthly retainer to a US publicist costs them around $10,000 a month). This is because the brands will not only pay the actor but also the stylist dressing him (a fee for every red carpet via an agency if they have one).
However, even the world’s leading fashion brands can’t afford to foot the bill for every single appearance an actor makes on a month-long global tour of premieres and promotion, and in those cases the film distributor pays the stylist out of the film’s marketing budget.
Wind the clock back five years to the Oscars 2020, one month before the global pandemic hit, and the men’s red carpet was a veritable penguin enclosure. That year’s winners Joaquin Phoenix (best actor for Joker), Brad Pitt (best supporting actor for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) and Taika Waititi (best adapted screenplay for Jojo Rabbit) sported sober tuxes in traditional black and white; Rami Malek’s black shirt was considered adventurous.
Meanwhile, the flash-bulbs were laser-focused on Natalie Portman’s Dior couture cape-dress and Scarlett Johansson’s Oscar de la Renta fishtail gown. Cut to last year’s Oscars with Domingo wearing a custom Louis Vuitton jacket with crystal buttons, flares, cowboy boots and a brooch over his bow tie. “A little Teddy Pendergrass, a little Cary Grant” is how he described it at the time. And he wasn’t the only one to put on a show. Halfway through the ceremony Ryan Gosling quick-changed into a head-to-toe hot pink suit for his performance of the Barbie song I’m Ken, a trend which has continued this year with Andrew Scott making salmon and puce a mainstay of his wardrobe (with a little help from his British stylist Warren Baker who also styles this year’s best supporting actor nominee Jeremy Strong of Succession fame).
Gosling unsurprisingly came top of Launchmetrics’ rankings at last year’s Oscars. His red carpet look (pre Barbie-pink performance) of a black Gucci tux with gold piping on the collar and shirt came in with an MIV of $3 million; Domingo’s (nominated for Rustin) was $2.1 million; and in third place was best actor Cillian Murphy (for Oppenheimer) in his extra-wide peak-lapel Versace tuxedo, which was created with the guidance of his stylist Rose Forde.
Having been an editor in a previous life at the fashion magazines Port and Clash, and a contributor to GQ, Arena Homme + and Vanity Fair, Forde started celebrity styling 10 years ago. She strives to bring a “narrative” element to her clients who now include House of the Dragon’s Matt Smith, The Brutalist’s Joe Alwyn, and Chiwetel Ejiofor, currently starring in Bridget Jones’ fourth film.
“I feel womenswear is a little bit behind in a sense, because we still see quite formulaic ideas of gowns and what is feminine,” says Forde, who is based in London. “I think the deconstruction of the idea of eveningwear and black tie is really interesting. There’s a lot more licence with menswear now.”
“I think there is less judgment [now] when a male star takes more sartorial style choices. I think there used to be too much fear around appearing too feminine or too soft,” says fashion commentator Nicky Campbell. “But now, look at someone like Harry Styles – his fashion choices only added to his power and solidified his star status.” Campbell’s day job is the fashion correspondent for US Elle, but his hilarious red carpet rundowns, delivered deadpan on social media, are the closest thing we have to the late catwalk critic Joan Rivers. Campbell’s videos average more than 37 million views per month, much to the delight of his 425,000 combined followers on Instagram and TikTok.
“I find a lot of the old-Hollywood guys to have incredibly boring style,” Campbell says. “George Clooney, Matt Damon, Bradley Cooper, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Affleck. There’s never any creativity with their fashion. It’s such a shame, because to have such massive visibility on the red carpet and not do anything with it is such a waste.”
Campbell thinks they could learn a lot about fashion from younger performers like Timothée Chalamet (who topped Launchmetrics Golden Globes rankings in January 2025 for his cornflower blue satin scarf, designer Haider Ackermann’s first ever design for the Tom Ford brand). Chalamet has “impeccable taste”, he says. “His most recent outfits are sharp, unexpected, thoughtful and funny. He demonstrates that it’s cool to care about what you wear. You can have fun with fashion and still be a critically acclaimed actor.” He also concurs that Domingo is “the undisputed king” of the men’s red carpet.
Forde recalls the moment where she started to see attitudes open up regarding men on the red carpet. Four years ago, working on a custom-made Gucci look for the Emmys for another client, British actor Paapa Essiedu (nominated in 2021 for I May Destroy You), she decided she didn’t want to include the proposed shirt – or any shirt at all – under the blue satin jacket. “Nobody had really done that. I remember at the time, people were like, ‘Oh.’ The brand was a bit hesitant. And I said, ‘I’m seeing it in editorial, and I’m doing it in editorial, and he’s the kind of guy that can carry it.’” After that, the no-shirt jacket was seen on everyone from Shawn Mendes to James McAvoy.
This year’s Golden Globes, which kicked off awards season proper on the first weekend in January, was perhaps the most playful yet for the men. Fifty shades of green – not a colour you would have ever seen in such high numbers pre-Wicked – swept the carpet: Jeremy Strong wore a teal-coloured Loro Piana suit with matching bucket hat; Andrew Garfield and Adam Brody wore racing green tuxes by Gucci and Prada respectively; and Andrew Scott was in head-to-toe aquamarine. It was arguably the most competitive red carpet yet and makes you wonder whether the major stylists should create a WhatsApp group to avoid a sartorial coincidence of this size happening again.
Coming straight off the Wicked press tour Jeff Goldblum had arguably the most right to wear a verdant shade. “I’m lucky with Jeff that even though he is 6ft 4in, he can fit samples and carry off quite a lot of fashion,” says his stylist Andrew Vottero, who previously worked at American GQ. “More recently we have been doing a wider leg with more volume instead of a skinnier pant, and heavily embroidered blazers and jackets look very cool on him.” Vottero has worked with Goldblum for nearly 10 years and over that time they have deliberately evolved his style, ebbing and flowing with the trends. “In the beginning we went back to the basics and we were doing simple black suits, white shirts, skinny black ties, a kind of a Reservoir Dogs/jazz kind of thing.” When Goldblum isn’t acting he tours the world playing jazz piano with The Mildred Snitzer Orchestra. “At a certain point we started working more with pattern and colour.” He cites the Christophe Chemin collection of illustrated Prada shirts as the moment he pushed Goldblum in a new direction. Prada took note of Goldblum’s style renaissance and cast him in its Fall 2022 campaign, as he was pushing 70. One non-negotiable for Vottero are Goldblum’s trademark spectacles. “There’s some part of me that feels like until he is wearing his glasses, he’s not fully dressed,” he says.
Trends, such as Paul Mescal’s short shorts from his Gucci campaign two years ago, can also find their way from a star’s wardrobe into the mainstream. Although Mescal’s stylist Felicity Kay refuses to take full credit. “Paul authentically wears shorts. He’s never worn them on the red carpet but it’s one of those crazy things where it just snowballs. And the amount of people that message me pictures of themselves in shorts and loafers now is quite hilarious.” Kay was a stylist at Elle magazine but left six years ago to pursue styling full-time, her first client being Dr Who himself, Ncuti Gatwa. She also styles British stars such as Mary & George heartthrob Nicholas Galitzine and Saltburn’s Archie Madekwe.
At the Gladiator II premieres around the world, Mescal’s semi-exclusive contract with Gucci meant Kay could only work with the Italian brand on head-to-toe looks at certain red carpet appearances. However, when they didn’t have contractual obligations Kay had licence to come up with an image that reflected Mescal’s tastes without ignoring the film’s themes.
“Because of the sort of traditional masculine association with Gladiator, I wanted to bring a bit of softness to that tour. The era of Gladiator would’ve been in a time where everything was handmade. A lot was made of the cardigans and the knitwear but that comes from Paul’s love of knitwear. A lot of the tailoring had a very relaxed feeling to it, again, because that’s very authentic to him. We actually incorporated a lot of vintage, indie brands, and really small independent designers, some who just graduated.” Brands that were given an airing by Mescal include Wales Bonner, WNU, Simone Rocha, and “he also wore a suit by his friend’s dad’s tailoring company, Etch”. Kudos to Paul.
Another actor who always looks sharp is Harris Dickinson, the 28-year-old star of one of the most talked about films of the year, Babygirl, and a current face of Prada. His British stylist Ben Schofield, a former GQ staffer, says he tries to avoid leaning too heavily into project themes when coming up with outfits for the actor (whose star is rising fast), as it can be limiting.
However, he did take the palette of the suit and parka worn in the early scenes of the film as a starting point for the grey double-breasted suit and pale yellow shirt and matching tie for the film’s premiere in Venice last summer.
“Harris really loves tailoring, so if it’s a carpet or premiere, we tend to gravitate towards the idea of a suit before anything else. I like that, in some ways, it boxes you in. There are only so many things you can do with a suit, the devil’s always in the detail – the tiny little twist that you can make to a classic,” says Schofield who also styles Callum Turner, who has a contract with Louis Vuitton, and, like Dickinson, is over 6ft and looks good in clothes which veer on the oversized.
I ask Mike Amiri where he thinks the red carpet will head in the coming year, starting with the Oscars. “There’s so much visual content in a modern social and digital world that things are easy to miss. So I think there’s going to be a greater sense of individuality, a greater sense of risk. People pushing it a little bit further.”
Campbell agrees wholeheartedly but believes there is still a way to go: “I’d love to see more men take risks. I see so much creativity in menswear fashion on the runway, yet this rarely makes its way on to the red carpet. For instance, the Saint Laurent Fall 2025 Menswear collection was one of the best of the season. They presented their signature tailored suits, but then amped it up with these incredible thigh-high leather boots. How amazing would that be to see on the red carpet instead of a black loafer?”
He has a point. The last thing any Hollywood actor can afford to be is predictable – especially if his heart is set on a gold statuette.
