For the past few years now, movie stars have publicized their films in promotional drag called “method dressing.” Picking up on the themes or cliches of their films, they appear on the red carpet in looks that function as goofy in-jokes – corsets on Margot Robbie for the bodice- ripping update on “Wuthering Heights,” and ensembles that telegraph “good” and “evil” for Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo’s “Wicked” two-parter.
Increasingly, they look less like movie stars than guests at a very expensive costume ball.
No star is a more committed method dresser than Robbie. Working with stylist Andrew Mukamal, Robbie adopted a wardrobe of Barbie-inspired ensembles to promote the 2023 blockbuster, sometimes tasking designers with recreating an exact Barbie costume. It was hokey and over-the-top, but so is the doll herself, director Greta Gerwig gently reminded us, and the sight of Robbie in hot pink skirt suits, minidresses and gowns set the tone of the film as finely drawn pop cultural froth.
Robbie’s methodology has continued with red carpet appearances for her starring role in Emerald Fennell’s sudsy adaptation of “Wuthering Heights.” There are corsets, puffed sleeves and little old timey trinkets that speak of her and co-star Jacob Elordi’s bond. This has been far less effective than her Barbie-girl, Barbie-world looks, in part because the movie is more serious (allegedly a bookish romance – allegedly!) and because the universe of the Emily Brontë book isn’t known for its extravagant clothes, unlike that of Marie Antoinette’s or Regency-era set “Bridgerton.”
It is unclear what Robbie’s ensembles are meant to tell us, except that she is promoting a period drama – which period, the clothes do not say. In one moment, Robbie wore a look that puts a spotlight on an emerging designer, Dilara Findikoglu, who created a dress braided with synthetic hair, for the film’s London premiere. At another moment, she wore one of the ugliest Chanel dresses in recent memory (see above).
Hollywood is desperate to get audiences back in movie theater chairs, and you can’t blame actors for doing anything to drum up excitement, whether that’s Timothée Chalamet summitting the Sphere, which was transformed into a giant ping pong ball, in Las Vegas to promote “Marty Supreme” or wearing a hideous Chrome Hearts suit in orange homage to his titular character.
Chalamet also went full method dress for his Bob Dylan biopic, “A Complete Unknown,” recreating hilariously deep-cut Dylan looks, like a goatee and scarf appearance at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival. And Erivo and Grande could have relied on their strange but touching bond to get us to see the “Wicked” movies. But their coordinating overt looks — ONE is evil and the OTHER is “good” and you know because of the COLORS they’re wearing! – showed us just how much they wanted us there. For “Marty Supreme,” “A Complete Unknown” and “Wicked,” the marketing desperation paid off: all were bonafide box office hits.
Method dressing has been popularized by Law Roach, the self-styled image architect who made vintage into the ultimate celebrity fashion flex back when big name brands refused to lend clothing to him. Roach is an expert at using clothes to tell a story, though his yarns tend to be subtler – that Lindsey Lohan is ready to be taken seriously as an adult, or Celine Dion may be a grand diva, but she has a sense of humor. He put Zendaya, his most famous client, in a vintage robot suit for “Dune” and little tennis ball heels for the erotic tennis thriller “Challengers,” enhancing her image as a dedicated actress who will throw herself into any kind of part, whether it’s the big blockbuster or the weird indie.
But now it’s clear this sartorial trick is a marketing gimmick, and it feels less like style or fashion and simply like costume. It can still feel elegant: look at Chalamet at the Palm Springs Film Festival in January, where he wore a tailored Givenchy suit in keeping with his character and midcentury fashion, which has garnered a cult following among menswear fanatics. The look tells us where style might go next – a more nuanced conversation.
For the most part, though, method dressing looks dated but we are thankfully entering an era less about performative dressing and more about dressing with some dignity. Actors who look more of the moment are Ayo Edebiri, Teyana Taylor and Jennifer Lawrence – who see dressing for a film premiere or awards show less about creating an outrageous look, and more about asserting their artistry and originality.
It’s hard not to look at those loose, louche red carpets of the 1990s, when Julia Roberts could wear an oversized men’s suit to accept a Golden Globe and Sharon Stone could stuff a Gap button-up into a ruched satin skirt and land on the best-dressed list. But there is too much money on the field (or on the carpet, as it were) for stars ever to return to that freedom – even method dressing is often the result of high stakes brand deals, which are necessary in leaner times for entertainment. We have been praising too many actors for wearing clothes that are simply ugly. Don’t we deserve some beauty?
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