For as long as we’ve been talking about Timothée Chalamet, we’ve been talking about Timothée Chalamet’s clothes. In a turn of sartorial fate perhaps predestined by his Manhattan upbringing and French lineage, the 29-year-old actor is a torchbearer among Hollywood’s most fashionable figures. His routinely surprising ensembles—say, Converse and sweatpants to the Met Gala, or a floor-length latex trench coat fresh off a flight to Japan—helped redraw the industry’s rigid boundaries around men’s fashion, formalwear, and off-duty style. Whether he was shirtless save for a Louis Vuitton women’s sequined blazer at the Oscars, or backless courtesy of a Haider Ackermann halter at Cannes, or guileless in a Virgil Abloh-designed bedazzled harness-bib at the Golden Globes, Timmy was training us to take notice.
But the global press tour for director James Mangold’s Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, for which Chalamet’s long-marinated lead performance would fetch him his second Academy Award nomination, posed a new opportunity for the actor. Though his blockbuster turn in the all-ages extravaganza Wonka made him a multigenerational star, the role also left a parched arroyo of evaporated sex appeal in its wake that no quantity of chocolatey Tom Ford suits or candy-toned Prada jumpsuits could quench. Recuperation would require a shift: A return to his gauche-swagger form, but weirder. More personality, less polish. Make the id match the ego. If the first shoe dropped when Chalamet crashed his own lookalike contest in New York City, the other tumbled down when he surprised the University of Minnesota campus marching band—in Dylan’s home state, no less—sporting a Safdie-approved skinny mustache and a playful Polo Ralph Lauren rugby shirt. More surreal promotional antics (such as appearing on ESPN’s College GameDay and Theo Von’s This Past Weekend podcast, or surprising fans with a performance-art-style Instagram livestream) followed, all of them marked by careful, if natural-seeming, fashion choices guided by the actor’s new stylist Taylor McNeill, whom history will certainly remember as the menswear oracle of Q1 2025; her client roster also includes Kendrick Lamar, whose sensational Celine flares at the Super Bowl halftime show were purportedly first intended for Chalamet.
As Timmy hit the circuit in an onslaught of knowing designer fashion and charming-scumbag streetwear, the actor’s aura not only returned, but radiated more strongly than ever. But how would the public respond?
“He looks hot,” says Interview editor Mel Ottenberg, specifically referring to a custom baby pink Chrome Hearts getup Chalamet wore to the Berlinale last month. “People have overdressed in a formal way for all the functions for far too long. Nobody ever said it has to be like this [on the] red carpet. I think he looks like a star, and I think he looks sexy.”
“I would wear the fits he’s wearing,” says Emma Rogue, founder of Rogue Vintage and Gen Z fashion whisperer. “The look with the pink Telfar puffer, the Chanel bag, the True Religion jeans—it’s literally what these the kids I come in to do fit checks with are wearing, like, to a tee.”
Timmy’s anti-overdressed wardrobe felt ruled by a certain freewheelin’ prerogative, and all of his outfits seemed to wink at someone or something. For the early-aughts nostalgists, there were those True Religions, cooked Nike Uptempos, and Alexander McQueen’s skull scarves. For the streetwear enthusiasts, there were Arc’teryx grails, custom Nahmias hoodies, and Kiko Kostadinov-designed Asics. (On his most chaotic-casual days, Timmy’s ensembles feel texturally akin to Justin Bieber’s, who became a modern maverick of idiosyncratic, high-low personal style under the tutelage of superstar stylist Karla Welch.) And there were plenty of viral-ready Easter eggs for the Dylanologists, from gentler nods via leather coats, rakish scarves, and bolo ties to his straight-up cosplay of a look Dylan wore at Sundance in 2003 at the film’s New York City premiere. At times, my colleagues and I wondered if he might go full Soy Bomb.
