All Hail Jonathan Majors, Hollywood’s New Overalls King

When everything breaks right, the arrival of a new movie star isn’t just that. In the best of all worlds (for our purposes, at least), the emergence of a new movie star can also mean the emergence of a new style icon: a new face, a new designer muse, a new focus for a thousand fit-check Instagram accounts. Think Timothée Chalamet, breaking out in Call Me By Your Name and then on a thousand red carpets, rolling out a precocious collection of designer goods and palling around with Haider Ackerman. Or Ryan Gosling, wearing pajamas at Cannes, cementing both his fashion sense and his superstardom. Or the entire freakin’ cast of Black Panther on a worldwide wrecking tour, expanding the boundaries of red-carpet style.

It’s no secret that Jonathan Majors is making the first part of that leap. GQ’s October cover star stole large chunks of Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods in June, and has held it down on the first season of HBO’s twisty, creepy Lovecraft Country since. He is, as the director of a forthcoming project says, not “the new Denzel” so much as he is “the new Jonathan Majors.” But he’s making the second half of that leap, too. Jonathan Majors is becoming a style hero before our very eyes. And he’s doing it, most significantly, in overalls.

There are not yet a ton of paparazzi photos of Majors, nor are there terribly many press shots. He’s new at this: he picked up his first real credit in 2017, and really emerged on the press circuit the next year while promoting White Boy Rick and The Last Black Man in San Francisco. It was while promoting the latter that he really popped, style-wise. A few suits, all razor-sharp, ties optional. Plaid pants belted up to there, red cardigan, major hat. You know: up-and-coming actor stuff, walking the line between knowing the good thrift stores and learning the names of the sales associates at the Gucci store.

But one fit at Sundance was immaculate. Artfully perched red beanie, I’d-bet-vintage teal crewneck, beat-to-hell Blundstones and a red hankie in his back pocket: those alone would qualify him for best-new-dresser status. The freaking pair of overalls he wore with all of that sent the whole thing joyfully, ludicrously over the top. Sundance style is a genre all its own; for a few days at the top of the year, Park City is awash in try-hard flannel and promotional Canada Goose down. Majors had mastered it on his first go. A star was born.

He’d keep it up the next month, walking the green carpet at an industry event in Los Angeles wearing—not the overalls they appeared to be, but a workwear-indebted look in shades of tan, classed up with a neckerchief and shiny Chelsea boots. By the end of the year, he’d be rocking some truly advanced tailoring.

This year would have been—was—the coming-out party. But both of Majors’s major projects were disrupted by the pandemic, meaning his big breakout summer went without an accompanying blitz of serious-fashion photos. We’ll have to wait for the continued fashion breakout of Jonathan Majors. Not all will be new when it arrives: that red beanie—joined, now, by some star-worth sunglasses and sneakers—is still around, per this GQ video. Here’s hoping he gets a chance to break it out soon.

Originally Appeared on GQ