If 2023 was the year famous guys started dressing for attention, then 2024 was the year this manner of “conspicuous dressing” crystallized into the de facto mode of celebrity menswear. It seems every dude in Hollywood now is either seizing a trend, snagging a designer brand deal, or both.
In turn, we’re seeing even the most seasoned working actors—such as Nicolas Hoult, a stalwart in the biz since he starred opposite Hugh Grant in 2002’s About a Boy at age eight—taking bigger and bolder style swings. Lately, Hoult is as booked and busy as ever: He’s currently promoting three separate leading roles in Clint Eastwood’s Juror #2, Robert Eggers’s Nosferatu, and Justin Kurzel’s The Order while also filming his next big gig as supervillain Lex Luthor in James Gunn’s upcoming Superman reboot. And as if he didn’t have enough on his plate already, Hoult is also trying to pull off one of the trickiest-to-pull-off garments of all time: leather pants.
During an appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers last week, the British actor wore a head-to-toe Bottega Veneta outfit complete with a dark sweater, round-toed derbies, and straight-legged leather trousers. A bit of an outside-the-lines pick for someone who, as Hoult told Esquire earlier this month, prefers “to be cozy” when it comes to clothing, but certainly emblematic of the industry’s broader shift towards outré menswear. (At recent events, the actor has also worn put-together looks from heavy-hitting brands like Saint Laurent, Prada, Dior, and Burberry.)
For years, Hoult has worked with industry-veteran stylists Wendi and Nicole Ferreira, who have also guided the likes of Jacob Elordi and Logan Lerman on their Fashion Guy transformations. As things stand, powerful celebrity stylists have transmuted the notion that while we can’t all be Lenny Kravitz, we all could sort of dress like him.
