Timothée Chalamet Is Dressing Like a Fashion Menace in Japan

Eileen Cartter
·4 min read
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Jun Sato/Getty Images

Not unlike a sweet-toothed child let loose in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, Timothée Chalamet dresses like a streetwear-obsessed New Yorker who gained unfettered access to the kookiest corners of the fashion world. But like Wonka himself, Chalamet is the savvy architect of his own image, keenly aware that he’s able to send fans (and menswear writers) into a frenzy whether he’s wearing a Haider Ackermann halter top or socks with Prada fisherman sandals.

This week, the star arrived at Tokyo’s Narita International Airport in rare (although not entirely unpredictable) form. For his Wonka press tour, Chalamet is working with stylist Ryan Hastings, who recently dressed Timmy in a Martin Scorsese-directed Chanel commercial and has also styled offbeat Hollywood fashionistas like Anya Taylor-Joy, Rooney Mara, and Chalamet’s Bones and All co-star Taylor Russell. Fresh off the same Japan-bound flight as Dua Lipa, the actor greeted a terminal full of fans and paparazzi in his plane-standard outfit—simple black tank top, Loewe wool track pants, and Jacques Marie Mage shades—rendered diabolical with the addition of a floor-dusting, double-breasted Avellano trench made out of squeaky black latex.

Timothée Chalamet, in an Avellano latex trench, arrives at the Narita International Airport.

Celebrity Sightings In Tokyo

Timothée Chalamet, in an Avellano latex trench, arrives at the Narita International Airport.
Jun Sato/Getty Images

Timmy’s wholly unconventional—if entirely camera-ready—airport ensemble implored the baffling logistics of pulling on a rubber latex garment (which must typically be prepped with baby powder and buffed with a silicone- or water-based polish) after a long-haul flight. “Liberally talc the inside before putting on a rubber garment,” advises the “latex care” page on Avellano’s website. “This will enable you to slip into them with ease.” Per the paparazzi photos from the airport, there appear to be a few telltale powdery fingerprints on the collar of Chalamet’s jacket. Even a mastermind must show his work.

The next day, Chalamet visited the studio of Japanese video game auteur Hideo Kojima while dressed like a video game protagonist: in a Junya Watanabe leather jacket designed to look like it was constructed from dozens of leather belts sewn together, with dark jeans and mega-lug-soled Prada combat boots. In a series of photos shared by the game designer, Timmy posed with a glassy-eyed figurine of Paddington Bear. (Wonka director Paul King also helmed the beloved Paddington movies.) The actor, in his jacket made of belt-buckled strips; the bear, in his famous wooden-toggle duffle coat. Like two distant brothers raised on opposite sides of a distinct-outerwear mill, reunited at last.

But before we get too comfortable in this gentle-steampunk realm, we should heed the warning of Gene Wilder’s 1971 Wonka, delivered during his memorably frightening gondola ride:

There’s no earthly way of knowing
Which direction we are going.
There’s no knowing where we’re rowing
Or which way the river’s flowing.
Is it raining?
Is it snowing?
Is a hurricane* a-blowing?

Later, on stage at the Wonka premiere in Tokyo, Timmy dressed as though he had emerged from the other end of the Wonka factory’s psychedelic tunnel. He wore a custom Prada lavender boiler suit accessorized with Cartier diamonds (he’s an ambassador for the brand) and bulbous, white leather Bottega Veneta ankle boots. The suit’s shiny purple ciré material—which is fabric coated with a calendered wax glaze—had a candy-like quality to it, resembling a molten piece of grape-flavored Laffy Taffy or the lacquered finish on a Nerds candy pebble. A press tour wardrobe of pure imagination.

At the Wonka premiere in Tokyo, wearing a custom-made Prada ciré suit.
At the Wonka premiere in Tokyo, wearing a custom-made Prada ciré suit.
Courtesy of Prada

As Chalamet points out in his recent GQ cover story, the Wonka he stars in “isn’t, like, athletic naturalism. It’s a shot of earnestness and sincerity, without the cynicism or dread or all the stuff we’re exhausted by.” Unbound by the recent SAG strike resolution, Timmy is free to dress to his (and Hastings’s) heart’s content; to wear all of the goofy, boyish, and wildly expensive pieces as quickly as luxury brands can supply them. As a famous chocolatier once said: “A little nonsense, now and then, is relished by the wisest men.”

*Interesting.

Originally Appeared on GQ

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