In a world where armies of stylists, PRs, and Hollywood marketing executives are the norm for every celebrity appearance, there is very little that can generate organic fashion hype these days. Even the deployment of a naked dress barely elicits a raised eyebrow.

Timothée Chalamet cuts through all of that. The actor, who turns 30 on December 27, has a unique capacity to harness the world’s attention – in his work as an actor, of course, but also with his wardrobe.

Take the Marty Supreme merchandise. Chalamet himself had a hand in creating it, along with his stylist, Taylor McNeill, designer Doni Nahmias and A24, the studio behind the new Josh Safdie-directed film, which hit cinemas on Boxing Day.

The actor, who has 19.7 million Instagram followers, only had to tease the £190 branded windbreakers on social media to generate excitement. The queues outside the New York pop-up made headlines.

Stock sold out in four hours. For the London pop-up, fans waited 17 hours. Those coveted pieces are now commanding four-figure sums on eBay. Even H&M designer collaborations can’t achieve that any more.

This isn’t the first time the ‘Timothée Effect’ has taken hold. He’s been celebrated for his style ever since he shot to fame in Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name. His name tops Google search trends after every red carpet event.

Specific details from his outfits too: online searches for brooches soared after he wore a vintage Cartier design to the 2020 Academy Awards, according to fashion data platform Lyst. Now, countless male stars sport high jewellery pins on the red carpet; he and McNeill turned the lapel into a marketing opportunity.

When Chalamet was revealed as the face of the Bleu de Chanel fragrance in 2023, Launchmetrics reported that the announcement was worth $7.5m in media mentions online. That December, GQ declared him its readers’ most stylish man of the year.

It helps that he hardly ever wears a traditional suit. “He’s not afraid to take some risks,” says Amy Odell, author of Gwyneth: The Biography and the Back Row Substack. “One moment that illustrates him as a fashion figure is that red Haider Ackerman jumpsuit that he wore to the Venice Film Festival in 2022. [Before that] everyone would just wear a tuxedo.

“And then men started having a whole lot more fun, and that was notable. He was at the forefront of that. Now, almost no one wears a tuxedo. Now we see men trying to get attention for their fashion on Hollywood red carpets all the time.”

He also wears clothes very well, as Arianne Phillips, costume designer for A Complete Unknown, attested in her interview with The Telegraph last January. In fact, it’s a challenge to make him look average. “He puts a T-shirt on and it looks elegant,” she said.

“We had to work hard at that early silhouette when he’s a cherubic, young 19-year-old with that baggy silhouette. I don’t want to give too much away, but we used a lot of smoke and mirrors to disguise that elegant body.”

And method. Just as he is a chameleon in his film roles – he’s covered off most genres: biopic, sci-fi, arthouse, period – Chalamet is a style chameleon too. His promotional wardrobes reflect the themes of his movies. The Marty Supreme merch takes this idea one step further – his promotional wardrobe is now shoppable.

He’s worked with McNeill since 2021, so it’s clearly a partnership that works. McNeill herself has a Midas touch – she put the rapper Kendrick Lamar in £830 Celine boot-cut jeans for his performance at February’s Superbowl, instantly supercharging the boot-cut denim revival.

She has styled shoots for Vogue and Vanity Fair, as well as Lorde and Brad Pitt (although the latter collaboration received a mixed reception).

So does Chalamet just wear what he’s told by his stylist? If that’s the case, it doesn’t seem that way. And therein lies the secret in the sauce. He has the capacity to make everything he wears seem authentically him. Is he a fashion icon, a marketing genius – or just a good actor? Maybe he’s all three.

All the trends Timothée Chalamet took mainstream

The tiny crossbody bag

No matter that they can barely accommodate a toothpick, Chalamet is the king of the tiny handbag. Not just Chanel but a wee $10,000 Hermes Kelly too. Worn with joggers and the same kind of swagger that a Scotsman wears a sporran.

Pencil moustache

What works on Timothée Chalamet does not work on the vast majority of British men, but that didn’t stop legions of them trying a pencil moustache on for size this past Movember. Timmy has a lot of facial hair crimes on his conscience. Let’s all try to remember that it was for a good cause.

Method red carpet dressing

True credit for this goes to Margot Robbie and the Barbie tour, or Zendaya’s tennis-themed Challengers wardrobe, but Chalamet was one of the first male stars to embrace this approach. By selling Marty Supreme limited-edition merchandise, he’s seized ‘method dressing’ and taken it to the next level. Expect others to follow suit.

Riding a Lime Bike

Chalamet eschewed the standard chauffeur-driven luxury car, instead rolling up to the London premiere of A Complete Unknown on a Lime e-bike – a stunt for which he was fined £65 because he parked it incorrectly. Is he responsible for the legions of ‘Lime Bike Leg’ injuries populating A&E departments across our major cities? Well, he and September’s Tube strikes.

Luscious locks

In 2023, Chalamet was the poster boy for ‘Adonis hair’: a long-ish style, worn curly and brushed forward to hang over the forehead, in the style of the Ancient Greeks. Again, he sparked countless copycats, this time among teenage boys, some of whom even got perms to achieve the look. When he shaved it off, fans were in mourning. Like David Beckham losing his blond ‘curtains’ in 2000 all over again.

Smiling on the red carpet

Fashion can be a bit po-faced at times, but Chalamet’s anything but. He’s a smiler, on the red carpet and everywhere else. Interviewers remark on his charm and manners. He’s eager to please – the antithesis of the too-cool-to-make-an-effort type.

He told Vogue: “People can call me a try-hard, and they can say whatever the f---, but I’m the one actually doing it here”. Fair play.

Recommended