This year’s Cannes Film Festival organizers may have banned the infamous naked dress, but they didn’t say anything about BDSM-themed dressing—for men, at least. Ironically, while the dress code has devoted its attention to restricting women’s attire on the red carpet, Alexander Skarsgård’s kinky thigh-high boots and mismatched sequin suit have bent the rules of propriety in a way that feels humorous, yet irreverent.
The Swedish actor is currently at the festival promoting his upcoming movie, Pillion, where he plays Ray, the handsome leader of a queer biker club who takes on Colin (played by Harry Melling) as his sexual submissive. The film is already a festival favorite, receiving a warm seven-minute standing ovation. So why not lean into the character and promote it even more?
If anything, themed dressing and red carpet Easter eggs have become the norm thanks to stylist-celeb power duos like Zendaya and Law Roach. From dressing Zendaya in archival cyborg-like Givenchy by Alexander McQueen for the Dune: Part 2 press tour to a custom tennis-printed Loewe dress for a Challengers premiere, every photo call has become an opportunity for subliminal messaging. Others have pushed the boundaries even further, going full method, like Timothée Chalamet who attended the New York premiere of A Complete Unknown dressed in a perfect recreation of a Bob Dylan outfit from 2003, blonde swooping hair and all. Skarsgård isn’t a stranger to pushing the style envelope or channeling his roles through gimmicky fashion either. When promoting his film Infinity Pool, the actor wore a leather leash around his neck to walk the carpet. Albeit, it was a jarring sight for the context, but it directly referenced a scene from the movie and felt appropriately authentic to the celebrity’s eccentric demeanor.
At the Cannes photo call for Pillion’s screening, the actor sported Loewe leather trousers paired with a thrifted BDSM graphic T-shirt depicting a faceless leather boot stepping on a man’s open mouth—he is playing Colin’s “dom” after all. Later, on the red carpet, Skårsgard donned a full look from Saint Laurent’s spring 2025 menswear collection, including the uniquely sensual over-the-knee leather boots (which have also been seen on Pedro Pascal).
The sartorial madness didn’t stop there. For the premiere of Eagles of the Republic, the actor stepped out in what could only be described as a Frankenstein-like suit. All styled by Harry Lambert, Skarsgård wore a gray striped Magliano jacket, oversized pink bow tie, and contrasting cobalt sequin trousers from Bianca Saunders. Daring? Yes. More so than a leather leash at a movie premiere? Not quite. Sometimes an ensemble simply comes along that is so perfectly sacrilegious that you can’t help but smile and accept the look as nothing less than a balanced work of art.
Skarsgård might not directly be disobeying the Cannes dress code—he’s adhered to wearing evening dress or a bow tie (as per the official guidelines) for the red carpet—but he’s definitely toeing the line, not unlike his character Ray, and perhaps is setting the standard for others to do so too.
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